Jasper's Guardian
by Dark demon619
Summary: Jasper, Nevada. Such a small town is the center piece for a galactic war that has been going on for thousands of years. But when the war starts up again, how will either side react when they find a whole new battle being raged right under their noses? One with monstrous inhuman creatures and a mysterious warrior with incredible powers. KARAS elements included.
1. Prologue

Speech Legend:

"Human Speech/Cybertronian Speech"

_"Spirits Speech/Communications Line"_

_'Thoughts'_

**"Inhuman/Non-Cybertronian Creatures/Intense screams or yelling"**

* * *

**Prologue: The Crow and the Worm.**

Every City has a will.

Every City has will that flows through it like the soul flows through the body. No matter how small or large, how many reside in it, or even how it is viewed by the world, each and every one has a will of its own.

Inside these cities are two kind of residents, the living humans and the spirits known as Yōkai. These two beings are connected on a level that is nearly impossible to notice. But one thing remains certain, if one of these two sides are threatened, the other is as well and if one of them is destroyed...the other shall follow them into oblivion.

When a city is threatened and its people, both spiritual and human are in danger this will is manifested. Born by one that cares for the well being of the city and the beings that reside within it, a powerful guardian is brought forth to protect and defend them all in the name of the will of the city.

Those who threaten this city shall be judged and dealt with by this guardian. For all that reside in the city are just like the city itself are under its protection.

All those who go against the city...beware the crow that hides in the darkness, for it will be your judge, jury, and executioner.

**-KARAS-**

Jasper, Nevada. A relatively small town located in the United States of America.

Its a quite place to most who pass through it. There is no massive skyscrapers that drew businesses in or major tourist attractions to attract large numbers of people to the city. All in all, Jasper seemed like just one of those small cities that people had the displeasure of passing through while on the road. In retrospect...this place could possibly be one of the dullest places on the face of the earth.

Well, at least that what Arcee's partner Cliffjumper thought of the place.

It had been a few years since these Autonomous Robotic Organisms had come to the planet humanity had dubbed Earth. These machines known as Cybertronians had been originally from a far off planet called Cybertron.

For countless years this species of highly advanced beings lived in a time of peace, but that was until a great war was unleashed upon the planet. This mighty race had split into two waring factions and raged war on each other ever since. One side was the peaceful and heroic Autobots and the other was the destructive faction known as the Decepticons. The war between these two factions continued to fight against each other for hundreds of years...a war that eventually consumed their world to the very core.

Eventually the endless fighting rendered the once proud world to nothing but a lifeless husk, incapable of supporting life of any kind. So at the danger of their own demise on a planet that they could no longer thrive on, both factions fled their home world and searched for a new home for their race. It was unfortunate then that both of these factions came across Earth. A place that was rich with the lifeblood of the Cybertronians called Energon, the Earth found itself as a hot spot for both factions in this ongoing war.

Making contact with the human race, the Autobots worked in secret to protect this innocent race from the same destructive force that helped cause the downfall of Cybertron. Aliened with the United States government, the Autobots were given a base of their very own in order to organize their efforts against the Decepticon threat. This base was located just outside the small town of Jasper, where the Autobots had to frequently patrol in order to protect its citizens from any potential threats.

That was exactly what a certain female warrior from Cybertron was doing and in her opinion...

Yeah, Cliff was right...this place was boring.

It had been quite some time since the last Decepticon sighting and patrolling the streets of the city at night in vehicle mode could only do so much. Arcee knew that she couldn't make herself known to the humans, but with the others back at the base doing much more entertaining things and no humans on the street made for one boring night.

_'Slag...why did I get stuck with this tonight?' _Arcee thought to herself.

Pushing her boredom out of her thoughts for the moment, Arcee got back to the matter at hand. The sooner she got done with her sweep of the city then the sooner she could get back and take a nice long power-down for the rest of the night. Twisting her vehicle form around an upcoming corner in the road, Arcee prepared to make one last pass through the town before heading back. As long as nothing showed up then she was home fre-

**_"AAAAAHHH!"_**

Arcee's tires slammed to a halt the moment her audio receptors heard that scream. Using her scanners to track the source of the sound, Arcee sighed one last time before turning her vehicle form's tires and heading in the right direction.

_'Why is it always on the last run through?'_

Muttering a curse, Arcee quickly sped off the investigate. While her main duty was to look out for any Decepticon activity, Arcee couldn't just ignore someone in trouble. She might not hold the humans in as high a regard as the other Autobots but Arcee would still protect them with all her spark. Driving for what seemed to be a few seconds, Arcee soon came a cross what seemed to be the source of that shout. Making sure that she kept her hologram 'Sadie' active in case any humans were near by, the Autobot slowly inched herself toward the area.

Turns out that the scream had originated from a alleyway, a cold dank one that near the edge of town. Arcee hated going down places like this, to cramped in her opinion. Making her hologram look down the alleyway, Arcee's optics were disturbed by the sight she saw.

At the far end of the alleyway was two figures. The one closest to her was a fairly tall human and according to her optics this human was a male with very a attire that looked like in belonged in the 'biker' category of clothing. The male had his back to her so Arcee could not get a accurate description of his facial structure, but that did not stop her from seeing the other figure that laid at his feet.

This figure seemed to be the equivalent of female human or at least what was left of one. While an experienced solider of war that claimed far too many friends and allies Arcee was unnerved at the sight of the second human's condition.

She was quite used to the sight of Megatron's soldiers being torn apart from blaster fire and even her own arm blades but humans were too...unsettling. When a Cybertronian is killed, its mostly metallic parts that are torn away along with Energon leaking out of them, humans on the other hand had a much more organic physical structure which resulted in a much messier result if their end wasn't pleasant.

And pleasant would be the last thing Arcee would describe when she saw the remains of the female. The body was practically split in two at the mid section, all the internal organs spilling out onto the concrete ground. The rest of the human's body wasn't in that much better condition as there were numerous cuts and slash marks all over her body (her processor counted around 47 in total) along with what appeared to be multiple broken bones. And if that wasn't enough then the sheer among of Blood covering the alley sure was. There was tons of it and it covered not only the body but the ground, the walls that made up the alley, and even the complete front of the male as well.

In all, it was sickening.

Making sure that her hologram was still up and running, Arcee called out to the male human in a hope to understand what the slag had happened. While openly showing herself would reveal themselves to the world, Arcee couldn't just leave and call the police...not after seeing that.

"Hey! Are you okay...what happened?" 'Sadie' called out, gaining the attention of the blood soaked man.

The man turned his head slightly (not enough for Arcee to get a good look at his face though) and looked at the motorcycle and its driver, "Oh its nothing, just a little accident. Nothing to concern yourself over." The man's voice held a bit of sick glee in the words he said, leaving Arcee to not buy a damn bit of it.

"Accident? Do really think I'll believe some slag like that after seeing this? Why are you acting so casual if this is some kind of accident!?" Arcee shot back before mentally cursing at herself for letting that bit of Cybertronian slang get out.

The man merely shrugged his shoulders, "I'm so calm because that's what this was, an accident. Now...if I was you I would just drive that little bike of yours home and forget all of this..."

If Arcee had eyebrows at the moment then she would have raised them, "Or what?"

The man let out a very dark chuckle at Arcee's response, "Or...you'll never leave here **_Alive_!**"

As if the grotesque remains of a female women wasn't enough, Arcee was utterly appalled with what happened next. The human who had been so calm and even happy with the bloody corpse at his feet started to change. It started with his spine as large metal spike suddenly erupted from the human's bones, ripping holes in the man's jacket and skin. This seemed to be a pattern as even more spikes started to emerge from other portions of the man's body such as his shoulders, arms, and even knees. Once these spikes had emerged the man's body began the next phase in his disgusting transformation.

The man's flesh started to rip as if something pushed against it. The jacket he wore fell to pieces as massive pipes and metallic plates erupted from the man's frame, steel replacing the flesh that make up a normal human's body. The same type of occurrence started to happen to the rest of the man's body as well. His arms becoming a mess of blades, gears, and other pointy objects. The legs that supported him turned into massive columns of steel and wire. And even the man's head, which had been out of view changed into a monstrous visage with one massive red eye at its center (which reminded Arcee of a cretin Decepticon scientist).

When the metamorphosis was complete Arcee stared in shock and even a bit of horror at what stood before her. Gone was the man and in his place a a massive monstrous creature of metal and steel. It was nothing like anything Arcee had seen before, no machine was like this, no Cybertronian could change like this even with their T-Cog. Whatever this thing was, it was neither human or Cybertronian but whatever it was...it looked hungry.

**"AH...that's better, I always felt like stuffy while wearing that."** The monster chuckled as it stretched its limbs, **"I was going to let you leave if you simply ignored what happened here...but you had to press the issue didn't you?"**

The monster broke out in a sickening laughter, **"Oh well! The night is young and I could always go for another snack, so..."**

With a speed that clearly looked odd for a creature of this size, the monster leaped into the air and dove at the Autobot with its claws at the ready, **"COME HERE! AND DIE!"**

Quickly spreading into reverse, Arcee dodged the monster just in time as its claws sunk into the ground she had been previously occupying. Enraged at being denied, the metal monster went into a frenzy and began randomly swinging at the Autobot's vehicle form. Still driving in reverse in order to avoid getting sliced up, Arcee quickly realized that she might have to risk transforming. There was no way she could fend off whatever this thing was while in her alternate mode and running off back to base was not an option.

This thing was what had killed that women in the alleyway and if she let it go then it would likely kill again before the night was over. No self respecting Autobot could allow such monster to go free and she would end this thing right her and now if she had to.

**"STOP RUNNING DAMN IT! I JUST WANT A TASTE!" **The creature wailed. Its distorted and insane voice was starting to get on Arcee's nerves at this point.

Quickly twisting her vehicle mode into the forward direction, Arcee drove as if Unicron itself was chasing her down. Quite fitting since the monster chasing her was likely far uglier then Unicron actually was.

Speeding off, Arcee soon speed off in the direction of a much more deserted portion of the city. That is one positive thing about a city like this, with far less people living in the city then it was much easier to find someone where no one would witness something that they really shouldn't.

Angling her mirrors behind her, Arcee was slightly relieved to see that the monster was still chasing her was still there. Why was she only slightly relieved? Well that was due to the fact that this thing was MUCH faster then the Autobot originally thought. Heck, the monster even changed his appearance again once it started to give chase. No longer was the creature chasing her a giant behemoth of spikes and metal but now it was more like a sleek creature of destruction. With the body in the similar shape as one of earth's resident creatures known as a feline, this monster ran at a speed that Arcee had to be wary of.

Still, the speedy Autobot was able to keep a fairly safe distance between herself and the monster chasing her until she reached her intended target. It was the industrial portion of the city which was more or less deserted at this time of night, so the Autobot wouldn't have to worry about any humans seeing her or being caught in the crossfire.

Make of hell of a sharp turn, Arcee sped into a fairly large industrial parking lot. One that was perfect for a brawl.

With the beast still sharp on her aft, Arcee decided that she had spent enough of this encounter running. It was about time to show whatever this thing was what exactly it was dealing with.

**"Stop Running you BIT-"** The monster snarled.

As the monster chased the motorcycle into the desolate parking lot, it noticed something odd. First it was the fact that the vehicle that it had been chasing was suddenly missing its driver, its as if she had just disappeared or something. Then the vehicle stopped abruptly and while balancing on its front wheel accidentally caused the monster to smack head first into the motorcycle's back wheel.

But that wasn't the oddest thing happened in the creature's opinion, that came next.

The blue motorcycle literally transformed into a tall cybernetic (and female) robot, who wasted no time in swinging her leg around and delivering one hell of kick to the monster's head which sent it flying into a nearby building.

Now in her primary form for combat, Arcee was ready for round two with this mechanical monster. Deploying her preferable weapons for dealing with something up close and personal, Arcee got into fighting stance and prepared for arm mounted blades for whatever was coming at her.

"Come on you sicking pile of slag! If you find the inhabitants of this world as easy prey, then lets see how much of a challenge I am!"

Digging itself out of the wall, the creature looked in curiosity at the female mech that was daring it to attack. Growling at the humiliation that it had just received and the mocking nature of her statement, the abomination was more then willing to meet her demands. Grabbing the concert ground with one arm and the top of the wall that it had been previously kicked through with the other, the monster's body began twisting in a way that could be compared to one of those spinning top toys.

Despite remaining on guard, Arcee was actually curious with what the creature was doing...at least she was until the creature suddenly came shooting towards her like a drill and harpoon put together.

Using her extensive reaction time and reflexes, the battle hardened Autobot quickly dodged out of the way of the spinning creature. Regaining her footing in a matter of mil-seconds, Arcee was able to catch a quick glance as the creature once again slammed into another wall due to its sheer momentum. But unlike last time, the creature imminently burst through the wall and aimed its sights once again on its prey.

This pattern quickly began to repeat itself as the trained Autobot dodged the creature's attacks as it continued to rebound off each responding surface it crashed into.

Arcee however quickly grew tired of this and with a small sidestep found a opening in the creature's attack. While the creature was spinning though the air with velocity that was more then enough to shred the femme if it got a direct hit on her, this state also left it vulnerable to attack. So when the creature came back around for another pass, Arcee took a small side step instead of leaping out of the wat and brought one of her blades up to strike the spinning machine.

The sound of metal against metal soon filled the area as the Autobot's blade collided with the monster's frame. This however was only part of Arcee's idea. Being distracted by the blade that was currently cutting into its side, the creature didn't notice Arcee bring her foot upward until it felt **another** powerful kick smack it right in the head.

Being knocked to the side by the Autobot's kick, the monster snarled as it lifted itself from the ground once more. Arcee couldn't help but smirk at the creature's misfortune, which only fueled the creature's rage even further.

**"Oh you think that's funny bitch!? Well...how about you laugh at THIS!?" **The monster mocked.

Lifting its spiky arms into the air, the creature suddenly slammed and forced its limbs deep into the concert. Arcee didn't see a real point in this until she noticed something under the ground...something that was heading right in her direction. Quickly jumping backwards, Arcee barley got out of the way as the creature's arms suddenly burst though the exact same spot she had been previously standing.

Somehow the creature's limbs had extended to a great length and burrowed their way through the Earth like a pair of snakes with an intent to catch the Autobot by surprise. In fact, the limbs continued to extend towards her even as she made a dodged out of the way and made their own attempt to grab the femme at the waist.

Arcee wouldn't be caught so easily however. Quickly transforming back into her alt mode, Arcee sped forward and while dodging the massive limbs she also quickly shortened the distance between her foe and herself. As the Autobot got into striking distance, Arcee transformed once more and delivered a devastating drop kick to the creature's face. Knocking the monster off balance and causing it to fall to the ground in a thud, Arcee took the opportunity to land on the monster's chest and switch her hands to their blaster setting.

"Well, that was funny but..." Arcee then shoved her blasters in her foe's face, "...lets see you get a chuckle out of my joke."

Wasting no time, Arcee then proceeded to blast the unholy slag out of the creature.

Duel blasters at the ready, the trigger happy Cybertronian let loose more then a few dozen blasts directly into the monster's metallic mug. This went on for a good while...at least until the creature decided that enough was enough. Despite currently getting shot in the face more times then Ratchet had his tools broken by one of Arcee's teammates, the machine monstrosity suddenly sprouted _another _set of arms from its shoulders.

These new arms were thin, metallic, and were shaped a bit like a skeleton's if it wasn't for the fact that the fingers were massive claws instead of normal thin digits. Seeing how its original limbs were in disposed at the moment, the monster's new ones took action imminently by reaching up and grabbing the Autobot by the throat and lifting her in the air.

Despite being honestly shocked by the new appendages sprouting from the monster's shoulders, this didn't stop Arcee from continuously blasting the monster in the face with her guns. Unfortunately though, as the creature slowly got back up on its feet and returned its original limbs to their original state...Arcee came to the conclusion that her weapons weren't doing all that much.

This was unfortunately confirmed when a sudden pressure around the Autobot's throat caused her to stop shooting, revealing that her countless number of blaster fire did a little less then cause some dents to appear on the creature's metallic head. Nothing more, nothing less.

The creature chuckled a bit before opening its mouth, revealing not a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth...but instead a mouth that looked quite closer to a garbage disposal instead.

**"Well that tickled...but I wonder, what will you blood taste like little Missy?!"** Arcee cursed and prepared to fire her basters right down the monster's throat. The monster didn't mind however and just leaned in closer. Nothing was going to interrupt his meal, nothing at al-

_"1...2...3...4..."_ A new voice echoed through the empty parking lot, gaining the attention of both combatants.

The monster instantly grew concerned the moment he heard those words. Those words, that chant was burned into the mind of every single member of his race. It was the mark of death, the mark of the crow...but how? Why here?! This was the exact reason why he had moved to this pathetic little town! There can't be one of them here!...could there?!

_"...5...6...7...8...9..."_

**"No...no, no, no...not here, anywhere but here..." **The monster muttered. The creature was so concerned with the mysterious words that it didn't even notice its grip loosening. Arcee quickly took advantage of this and slipped though the clutches of the creature that had been constricting her movement. After kicking the monster once again in the chest (which resulting in knocking the monster back a few feet), Arcee began to search for the source of this weird chant as well (While of course keeping her blasters on the monster in front of her).

Hey, just because she wasn't scared out of her processor doesn't mean that she wasn't wondering on where the words were coming from.

_"...it is 10. Sway to and fro, sway. Release!"_

Just as the last word was muttered, a extremely bright light filled the night sky. Their eyes/optics quickly racing to the source of this light, both parties instantly came to stare at a intense spectral that was located atop of one the nearby buildings. The light proved to be far too intense for Arcee's optics, so the Autobot wasn't able to get a clear shot of what exactly was going on atop of the building. But despite that, she was able to see a very disturbed reaction from the monster she had previously been engaging.

Whatever was going on, this creature didn't like it one bit.

"_Go Karas!"_

The light soon gave way to darkness, leaving both individuals to gaze at what had taken its place. Arcee was surprised to see another figure standing in the exact same location. Whoever it was, it had the basic appearance of a human in both size and structure. The major difference however was what this human(?) was wearing. Instead of the modern clothes that the population of Jasper normally wore, this figure was instead wearing a set of armor with a sword attached to its back.

Checking her database, Arcee came to the conclusion that the armor bore Japanese/Chinese influences while also containing a completely foreign energy signature which could be seen by the glowing blue lines that flowed through the armor.

But her analysis was rudely cut short when the monster she had previously been fighting screamed out at the figure, its voice now filled with fear along with its anger.

**"You! You Bloody Crow! THE Hell are you doing here!? Do you want to die as well?"** The monster readied its claws, **_"BRING IT THEN, I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE LIKES OF YOU!"_**

The figure said nothing. Instead, the armored solider reached behind its head and unsheathed its sword, revealing a shining blade with a bright blue glow to it. Swinging the blade in a flashy yet intimidating fashion, the figure suddenly dove off the building and somehow began to _run down _the building's side. With a speed that could have matched Arcee's alt mode at its highest speed, the human armor made its way down the building's side and came rushing towards the two mechanical titans.

_"Karas, Attack." _A synthetic voice came from the figure, but underneath that cold voice Arcee could almost make out the tone of normal human. It almost sounded like it was from a young boy...

Being provoked by such a action, the monster roared in fury and started to repeatedly slam its arms into the ground. Steam suddenly started to erupt from every open crack in the creature's armor as it did this, the speed of its attacks increasing all the while. With one final punch into the ground, the monster released a shock wave into the earth, creating a wave of spikes form the earth itself towards the armored figure known as Karas.

This obstruction didn't seem to bother the new arrival though. The armored being just kept running at the monster with the same amount of speed as when it started. But when Karas's path became blocked by a newly formed row of spikes, it did something that made Arcee's processor hurt. With a flick of its wrist, the figure somehow propelled its sword into the air with such a force that it caused the blade to spin in the air like a buzz saw.

The sword flew though the air with such a speed and force that when it collided with one of the spikes...it cleaved it in _half_.

The sword somehow sliced its way though more then a dozen of these spikes before its master reclaimed it just as it reached the source of the spikes themselves. The monster cringed as the agent of death descended on him. Roaring in defiance, the monster tried to swipe at the suit of armor with all four of its arms but that only resulted in his claws meeting air. The armored figure ducked, dodged, and twisted its body through the monster's attempts to harm it before finally coming to a halt just a few feet away from the beast.

**"STAND STILL AND DI-"** Lifting one of its massive limbs into the air, the metal demon tried to crush its foe with one strong strike. But it was painfully disappointed when a single swipe from Karas's sword left the monster with one less hand and a lot less blood.

**"Damn it!"** The monster cursed in pain as bright green fluid spilled from its limb. Ignoring the missing appendage for the moment, the metal demon brought its other large arm around for another strike. This however never came to be as instead of simply waiting like before, Karas brought its own fist upward instead.

The creature grunted in pain as a small fist impacted its metallic ribs. It could feel the metal crack and fold into itself, the power of the blow outmatching anything the monster or even the Autobot had produced in their previous battle. Blood even started to leak from the creature's mouth, the strength of the blow was so forceful that it even knocked the creature off its feet and launched it into the air.

Time seemed to slow down at that point for nearly everyone involved except for Karas. The monster couldn't help but stare in utter fear as it realized what was happening, the trademark skill of these guardians. The manipulation of time itself. A truly powerful skill that could easily mean the end for anyone that stood against these warriors. Sure, the monster's species could also use this skill but it was far too late for anything like that in this duel.

It was staring into the eyes of death and there was very little he could do about it.

With everyone else moving in slow motion (even Arcee could just barley tell what was happening), the armored warrior made more then a dozen slices with his sword across the monster's midsection and cleaved the beast in half at least a dozen times in a blink of a eye.

Time once again resumed its natural flow just in time for the monster (who now could no longer feel his legs) to receive one more solid punch to its head. This one was centered on the creature's eye, resulting in not only a temporary loss of sight for this creature but also getting propelled high into the night's sky via a armored fist.

The creature's lower section of its body collapsed onto the ground as the remaining portion flew through the sky, leaving a trail of green blood in its wake. Arcee just stood there in awe at what had just transpired before her. The utter annihilation of the monster that nearly put her in the scrap yard a few minutes earlier was just as much shock to the femme as the impossible skills of this armored figure were.

Speaking of which, it was at this moment that the armored figure turned towards the Autobot and stared at her. Arcee briefly considered getting into a fighting stance in case the figure had any violent intentions for her as well but that was tossed in the garbage when this figure actually gave a small nod. While the being before didn't say anything vocally, Arcee had enough experience with her scout friend Bumblebee to know that the nod was one out of gratitude. But why?

Was it of thanks for luring this creature out of the populated portion of the city? Was it thanks for trying to take care of that thing herself? Or was it simply for the fact that Arcee didn't let that monster go free after seeing it gruesomely kill someone?

All these questions were left unanswered however as the femme felt something wet and organic fall on her face. Glancing upward, Arcee noticed that the upper half of the monster was starting to fall back down to earth, its blood raining down on the ground beneath it.

Karas noticed this as well. Resting his sword on one of his shoulders, the armored warrior used his free hand to briefly touch the handle of his blade with just two fingers. This imminently had a surprising result as the sword suddenly expanded in length and size, becoming a much larger blade with blue electrical lines running though it. Arcee also noticed that the the helmet's eyes had changed as well, becoming a much deeper blue.

While he was looking towards the sky Arcee noticed yet another change occur with the figure known as Karas. The shadow at his feet, the same one that was created by the moon's illuminating glow had started to change in shift. No longer in the shape of a man (or humanoid for that matter), the shadow now looked like a extremely large bird...almost as if it was a-

_**"-You Bloody Crow!-"**_

Suddenly remembering the monster's words from earlier, Arcee looked back just in time to see the armored figure vanish into the night sky. turning her gaze towards the sky above, Arcee witnessed one more thing that would have seemed impossible to her if it was at least an hour ago.

With the full moon positioned directly behind him, the armored warrior began his final assault on the creature in his sights. Swinging his sword a speed that was normally unheard of, Karas started to carve the creature up like a thanksgiving turkey. Slicing and dicing with blade in hand, the monster somehow found itself constricted by the shadows that were generated from every swing Kara's sword had made. A chilling sensation came running up from what was left of the creature's spine as it stared up into the sky, the dread overwhelming it.

Directly above the creature was Karas, and with one final swing...the armored warrior sliced the creature in half right down the middle.

_**"AGHH!" **_ With one final scream the monster split in half down the middle, ending its existence. The remaining half of the beast briefly fell through the sky before vanishing in a massive explosion of light, one that eradicated all that remained of the once terrifying monster of metal.

Flying through the cloud of smoke and landing on the creature's disembodied legs (which turned to dust on impact), the warrior swung his weapon one more time and flicked the remaining blood off his sword. Sheathing the blade, Karas then turned his attention back towards the other being involved in this situation.

Arcee...well, she had been pretty shocked at she had seen transpire. Still, she couldn't deny that it was as Bulkhead would say..._Slagging Awesome_!

Not that she would ever admit that out loud...

Seeing as the monster she had been previously engaged was now nothing but a bunch dust in the wind, Arcee considered the idea of approaching and communicating with whatever was in front of her. He had helped her at a very fortunate moment and even defeated a creature that deserved far worse of a fate then what it got.

Unfortunately before Arcee got a chance to even approach the armored figure time seemed to slow down once again. At a level that Arcee wasn't even aware of, Karas leaped into the sky and vanished within the walls of the city. When time had finally returned to normal, Arcee was surprised to see no trace of the armored solider. Looking around for a few moments, Arcee sighed in annoyance once she realized that all that remained from that battle between two unknown creatures was the destruction caused to the environment.

With a processor-ache developing, Arcee decided she had witnessed enough excitement for one night. Making sure no one else was in the area, Arcee quickly reverted to her alt mode. With her hologram back in online, Arcee began a long drive back to base. But on the way back the Autobot heard a very annoyed yet worried voice been transmitted to her communications receiver.

_"Arcee?! whats you status? Answering this slagging thing or I'll make sure you'll regret the next time you find yourself on my bench!" _The aggravated medic of Team Prime shouted over the Autobot's private channel. Apparently he had been trying to contact Arcee for a good while now, it appears that he hadn't been able to get a good signal since her battle with that monster began.

Sighing at the medic's threat, Arcee switched on her end of the network and tried to sound as calm as she could. "Yes Ratchet? Whats up?"

_"Whats wrong!? I've been trying to contact you for the last hour or so! Where have you been!?"_

If Arcee had a head right now then she would be shaking it, "Ratchet, you would not believe the night I've had..."

**-KARAS-**

Deep in the residential portion of Jasper rested dozens of families. Nearly all of these people lived fairly normal lives with their loved ones, which meant that they were completely unaware of the destructive battle that had just went down on the other side of the city. No, as they slept the people of this small town dreamed of things that went totally unrelated to the chaos that had just transpired. Things such as their daily lives and what would happen in a few hours when they woke up to began their daily routines.

But nearly didn't mean all of them.

In one of the many houses that populated the city lived a young boy. Living with his caring mother was a teen by the name of Jack Darby. Living their daily lives with just each other, Jack and his mother lived a fairly normal life. Having a daily life that consisted of a high school education and a average job at a local burger joint, Jack really couldn't complain all that much about his life during the day.

His nights were a whole other issue however.

Despite the night starting out fairly peaceful Jack quickly found himself being awoken by a nasty dream. This type of thing had been a fairly normal occurrence for the young boy in the past few months. He had never spoken of it to his mother, it wasn't something that he had wanted to bother her with due to how late she normally worked. Besides, despite her medical skills Jack knew that this was something she couldn't help him with.

How could she help him with something that was a part of his new job?

Thinking back to the _'dream'_ he had, Jack let out a bit of a groan. Resting his head on his pillow once more, Jack gently closed his eyes and attempted to get back to sleep. But it wasn't that easy...especially when a small white cat joined him on his bed, laying its furry head onto his chest. Releasing a tiny groan as the tiny creature snuggled into his chest, Jack couldn't help but think about his ever changing job...

"Great, now there are giant robots along with the monsters." Sighing to himself, Jack laid his head back down onto his bed. "When I thought about getting a second job...I didn't think that it would be something this odd."

**-KARAS-**

* * *

**Story Related Notes:**

This is a experiment for the most part. If people like it then I will continue it, if not then it will likely remain a one shot. We shall see where it goes from there.

The main idea for this story came from the **KARAS** OVAs (of course) and the multiple Jack related stories I have seen on this site. Now not to bash and of them (They ARE good stories I assure you), but honestly most stories end up turning him into a transformer or something similar to it (there are of course exceptions and I am not trying to lesson these stories at all). I simply wanted to try something different with a source that hasn't been used before in this fanon (at least on this site to my knowledge) and here we are.

As you can likely tell, this story is starting off before the first episode of the series. So Cliffjumper is still online, the Decepticons are still fairly silent, and none of the kids have meet with ANY of team Prime yet.

Yes, that cat is **Yurine**. She will be explained later. Same goes to how Jack is a Karas at all, but it won't be the same as Otoha's from the OVAS (in a coma, that will not be the case here). This also applies to the **Yōkai**, they will have appearances in the later chapters as well as well as a overall explanation for them.

There will be more **Mikuras** (the monster in this chapter) in later chapters, as you will get a explanation of what they are and why there are here (They had a more plot related role in the OVAs, but what else would Karas fight in this story besides Decepticons and MECH? Still, there is a reason why there are here in a town like Jasper). I am also willing to take suggestions for these guys, as there is can be varied designs and powers for each and every one.

Pairings? I have no idea at the moment...what would you like to see?

Also, the reason why the Mikura didn't use the time manipulation on Arcee was because it wanted to enjoy seeing the fear on her face when it killed her...too bad that didn't happen for more then one reason (Arcee kicking its ass for a good portion of the fight, Arcee's personality in general, and Karas of course).

**Non Story Related Notes:**

Just one more thing (and this doesn't have anything to do with Transformers so if you don't care then feel free to ignore this)...does anyone else think that the concept of a KARAS has some similarities with Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach? I don't mean the armor, will of the city, or shinigami/Zanpakuto bits but I mean the elements of the KARAS and just who Ichigo is.

I mean Ichigo is a human who exits his body to activate a power inside him (in the form of his soul) that he uses to defend his home town from evil spirits that threaten both the living and dead. Sounds a bit similar to a KARAs right? Without the Armor, Will of the City, or the creatures a KARAS fight of course, but they do sound a lot alike. (Although I know neither of them copied the over since Bleach came out in 2001 (while the KARAS films were in 2005) and KARAS was based on other material [Look at the wiki for those, too much to explain here] but it is still interesting to say the least).


	2. Chapter 1: Rumble with the Robots

Speech Legend:

"Human Speech/Cybertronian Speech"

_"Spirits Speech/Communications Line/Karas Talking"_

_'Thoughts'_

**"Inhuman/Non-Cybertronian Creatures/Intense screams or yelling/Introductions"**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Rumble with the Robots.**

_In every city, there are two types of residents that live within it.  
_

_The humans that are always in sight and the Yōkai, the spirits that remain in the background. While humans are normally unaware of the spirits that surround them, these two races live in harmony with each other. Forever bound by a link that transcends normal mortality._

_But among these spirits are the black sheep of their race, the Mikura.  
_

_Spirits who have replaced their flesh with steel, these Mikura despise the world around them and seek to be noticed by the world via violent means. Even if this meant devouring the flesh of the living. Giant, monstrous creatures that hide in plain sight, these monsters fear very little... _

_...except the agent of the city, the crow that fly overhead...ready to strike at any moment._

* * *

_Some time Later, Team Prime's Base:_

Arcee groaned. Perhaps explaining the 'exact' reason why she didn't answer Ratchet's attempts to communicate with her wasn't the best idea...

Upon returning to base after the battle with that monstrous creature and the mysterious figure known as Karas, Arcee had been imminently confronted by not only the team's medic, but nearly every other member of Team Prime. That of course included:

The Team's scout, **Bumblebee**.

The Local Wrecker of the group, **Bulkhead**.

Arcee's very own partner, **CliffJumper.**

And last but not in the bit least the Leader of the Autobots, **Optimus Prime.**

After fully explaining her experience to the entire team (So there would be no need to repeat herself), Arcee was met with a few varied reactions.

Bulkhead and CliffJumper both shared the annoying viewpoint that was that "She was just joking", as both of the bots couldn't believe such a tale after so many weeks of inactivity. They honestly believed that it was some sort of 'fairytale' as the humans called it, something completely fictional so Arcee could explain why she was late getting back from her patrol. Bumblebee was far more entertained after he heard her tale, but was just as skeptical as the previous two in believing that it actually happened.

Optimus believed Arcee thankfully but he too was questioning the idea of a human preforming such amazing skills that the femme had described in her report.

But of all the team, the one who had the strangest reaction to her news was the Team's no-nonsense medic, **Ratchet.**

"I may have an explanation for Arcee's strange story," After making a few strokes from his keyboard, Ratchet brought up more than a dozen individual video clips and displayed them on his monitor.

Releasing a grunt, Ratchet focused their attention on just one of the videos, "For the last week or so, I have been..." The medic hesitated for a moment, "...contacted by Agent Fowler with an important assignment."

Bulkhead and Cliffjumper let out a small chuckle at the mention of the team's government contact. It wasn't a big secret that Ratchet wasn't the biggest fan of the human race and since this man was perhaps one of the most annoying person they had ever encountered...well, it normally didn't end that well.

"For the last week, Agent Fowler has been providing me with video clips that contain very odd footage, footage that he has been convinced that has been the work of the Decepticons." Pressing one more button, the main video started to play for the entire team.

The clip opened up on fairly average part of Jasper. The area contained an empty street, a few buildings in the background, and one street light. Form the information presented in the upper right corner, this video was sited to have taken place at around 2:34am.

"Nearly all these clips begin like this, just an average looking street with no bystanders around," Ratchet explained, "But after a few seconds...something happened."

The clip continued to play for a few more seconds, but just like Ratchet said...something odd did happened.

With no visual disruption in the video's footage, the entire landscape of the video was completely altered. The road now had massive chunks of it missing out of it the lamppost was torn completely in half and tossed across the screen, and the building behind all of this now had a huge hole in the side of it. But one of the most notable changes was the multiple claw marks that adorned the road and building.

"Through careful analysis, I have come to the conclusion that there has been no edits to this footage. All of this happened in real-time."

Letting the other clips play, all of Team Prime watched as the other clips displayed the same result. But of the team, Arcee felt a sense of Déjà vu from each one. After the last few of the videos finished their run-time, Ratchet closed them out and turned his attention back to the others.

"From Arcee's description, it sounds like the same figure that she meet tonight was also responsible for these incidents as well." the medic stated.

It made sense somewhat, its not like the other Autobots could make a better excuse for what they saw on those videos. Still, Cliffjumper was still a bit unconvinced for the most part. Videos and suspensions were one thing but until he saw it with his own eyes, the Autobot would have a hard time believing in a human in armor slaughtering a giant mechanical monster with the skills that would make any warrior red with envy.

"So what do we do about this? Search for this guy like a servo in a scrapheap?" Bulkhead asked to no one in particular.

It was Optimus, who had remained silent during the meeting, who answered the wrecker's question.

"For the time being, we should continue to operate as normal." the Prime said, "This figure has shown that it is a non-hostile to us and seeks to protect the people of this world. If Ratchet's theory proves true, then it is only a matter of time before this 'Karas' reveals himself again."

Optimus then turned and faced his team, "When that time comes, we shall approach him and see if he is willing to talk to us on more...mutual terms." And with that said, Optimus dismissed his team and allowed them to go about their own business. Arcee in particular wanted to get some much need shut-eye, the night had been tiring enough for her and all she wanted was to sit down and have a nice, peaceful recharge.

But before the femme could even make it out of the base's main chamber...the annoyed medic's voice pierced her auto receptors.

"...meaning that Cliffjumper and Arcee have patrol duty tomorrow, so I suggest the two of you get some rest before then" Ratchet, who had turned back to his computer stated out loud, getting the two bots attention.

Arcee inwardly groaned. She really didn't want to go on patrol again so soon, especially after a day like today. Feeling a hand clasp her shoulder, Arcee looked behind her and saw Cliffjumper give her a reassuring grin.

"Ah come on, it's just patrol." Cliff grinned, "How bad can it get?"

_The Next Day:_

_'Me and my big mouth...'_

Those thoughts echoed through Cliffjumper's aching processor, it hadn't been that good of day at all. Or at least the last few minutes weren't, as everything kind of went to slag less than a few moments ago.

A nice calming drive had turned into an utter nightmare for the Autobot. Before any of this madness had even began, Cliff had taken his sweet time on patrol and chatting it up with his partner. But a sudden beep on his radar revealed a huge deposit of energon. With the limited supply they had back at the base, Cliff was all for securing it for his comrades. But that unfortunately was the point of time where the Decepticons showed up, giant flying warship and all.

The Cons deployed a good number of troops to deal with the Autobot and claim the energon, but Cliff wasn't ready to let that happen. He of course requested backup (which he earlier refused), but there was no chance that they would get there in time. So Cliff had to deal with these punks on his own for the moment. The resulting brawl lead to Cliffjumper taking out a few of the cons but also earned him more than a few dings and even the loss of one of his horns! Getting knocked back into the crater that contained the energon, the opposing sides then engaged in a quick blaster fight.

This unfortunately lead to one of the Cons hitting a crystal of energon with one of its stray shots. The reaction soon created a massive explosion, destroying all the energon and destroying a good number of the Decepticons while also highly damaging Cliff.

And that's how we got to the present situation, a badly damaged Cliffjumper being dragged back to the Con's warship by the two remaining Decepticon troops.

Of course, this was the moment for something that the Con's didn't get to do that often...complain, much to Cliff's displeasure.

"Ugh, why are we dragging this pile of scrap back to the ship? It would be so much easier to off him right here and now." The Con to Cliff's left grunted, clearly annoyed.

The Con to the right answered, "Apparently Lord Starscream wants to question the prisoner. He is quite upset about the loss of the energon stash."

"Think that we should keep quiet about the fact that Phil was the one that blew the energon sky-high? Not this Autobot?"

The two cons didn't say anything for a few moments, a bit of an awkward silence between them.

"Yeah, that would be a good idea..."

The Con to the left then sighed, "Seriously though, **Lord** Starscream? Does that rust head seriously want us to call him that? That's moronic."

"What? He is our boss now, we might as well call him that." The other Con responded, quite confused at the annoyance in the other Con's voice.

"Really? Screamers no leader, not like Megatron. That Screamer will get us all slagged sooner or later, its only a matter of tim-WHAT THE SLAG!?" The Con to the left suddenly screamed, letting go of Cliff's arm in the confusion.

"GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!" The Con shouted to the sky, the other Con dropping Cliff completely and letting the hurt Autobot slam into the ground as it went to its ally's aid.

"Hold on! Stop moving around so much and I'll get it!"

Due to the damage he had received, Cliffjumper's optics were in pretty bad shape and he unable to get a clear look at what was happening. What he was able to figure out was that there was something attached firmly to one of the Con's heads and the other was trying to help get it off. And if the quick sound of metal shifting was anything to go by, the Con was planning on shooting the thing off its ally's head.

"Hurry up and do it then! This tiny piece of sl-**Slick**-AGH! MY OPTICS!" A scream of a pain erupted from the Con, the sound of something piercing metal accompanying the scream. Cliff chuckled, apparently whatever this thing was...it wasn't afraid to play dirty.

"Thats _it_!"

The sound of a blaster firing echoed through the area before being followed by the sound of a large metal frame falling to the ground. Despite his blurry optics, Cliff was able to make out the sight of one of the cons laying on the ground with its head missing while the other swung its arm around wildly.

"Aw Scrap! You pile of-" The sound of blaster fire drowned out the rest of the Con's words, leaving Cliff to listen to the Con's fruitless attempts to slag whatever was attacking it.

Using the remaining strength he had, Cliff slowly pushed himself up as the violence around him started to draw to a close. Finally getting to a knee, Cliff watched (optics still blurry mind you) as the Con also dropped to knee, a small black blur dashing across the Con's entire body. Diverting some of his power from his weapons to his normal systems, Cliffjumper was relived to see his vision return to normal. Gazing at the area around him, Cliff was able to notice a few things.

There was of course the corpse of the Con that was laying in front of him. Now that his vision was back to normal Cliff could easily see that the Con's head had been blown off, undoubtedly due to its ally trying to shoot whatever had been stuck to its head. Then there was the other Con, who was no laying a good ten or twenty feet away from the Autobot. Taking a closer look at the Con, Cliff noticed that there were a significant amount slash marks covering the Con's frame with deeper ones near the joints and neck area...

In fact the Con's neck was practically sliced in half at this point, leaving the Con's head to be only attached via a few cables and wires.

But what really drew his attention was a small figure that was standing on the Con's chest. It was a small black figure that was about the size of a human. It was holding a small blade (by Autobot standards) that was covered in energon and was also wearing a suit of black armor with blue lights running though it.

It was just like the story Arcee had told them last night...

...Aw scrap.

_'Cee will never let me hear the end of this.'_

Dragging himself back to his feet, the Autobot started at the small figure with as much caution as he could. If this guy was the thing Arcee was talking about then there was no way Cliff could handle him while in this condition. But as the figure flicked the energon off his sword and turned his back to the damaged Autobot couldn't help but feel a bit thankful (and ignored).

"Um...thanks?" Cliffjumper was then surprised to see the figure turn and face him, the blue eyes meeting his own.

_"I would make myself scarce if I was you, the guys above won't be happy when they realize that their grunts have been disposed of."_ The figure made clear before vanishing in a burst of light blue feathers, leaving the Autobot to think about the man's words. Making a quick glance at the war ship that was still floating above him, Cliff quickly activated his coms and contacted his allies.

"Um guys? Could really use a bridge at the moment..."

_Around the same time, Jasper:  
_

Moving as fast as her wheels could take her, Arcee rushed through the highway roads. Having gotten word of Cliff's current predicament, the Autobot's leader had ordered the team to return to base so they could ground the bridge to his location as soon as possible.

Why? Why did Cliff have to be so cocky? She offered him back up, she always offers him back up. But Cliffjumper is always so confident in his abilities to handle the situation and most of the time it normally came back to bite him in the aft. But despite how much trouble he normally got into, Cliff normally only came out of these scraps with only a few dings and wounds.

Still, Arcee couldn't help but worry. Cliffjumper is one of the closest beings in all of existence to the femme. He is almost like a brother to her and she would rather dive into the fiery pit then just allow the situation to conclude on its own.

Racing, Arcee was a bit caught off guard when someone else contacted her.

"What?!" Arcee growled, "I'm nearly back to base, just give me a few more minutes to-"

Ratchet's voice cut her off, _"Arcee, Cliffjumper just returned to base. The situation has been resolved and you can return to your patrol."_

Arcee was a bit dumbstruck at the medic's comments, "What!? We received his request only a few minutes ago! How could he be back alrea-"

_"Hey Cee!"_ CliffJumper was the one who cut off the femme this time, _"Its fine, I'm fine. Sure I got a few dings and bruises but other then that I'm perfectly fine...how are you?"_

Arcee nearly sped out of control when she heard her partner's voice. Quickly regaining her balance on the road, Arcee roared back into her com device.

"Me!? Cliff, how and the slag did you deal with the cons and get back to the-" Arcee's attention was quickly drawn away from the conversation when she spotted two purple vehicles trailing her. Focusing on their front windshields, Arcee nearly cursed when she saw that there was no one driving either of them.

_'Decepticons!'_

"Cliff, I'm going to need to call you back."

Cutting the line, Arcee revved her engine and took off down the highway. The two Cons quickly increased their speed in response, but Arcee's smaller vehicle mode gave her a extinct advantage over to two in the speed department. The three Cybertronians became intertwined in brief high-speed race but Arcee was able to speed out of their sight.

Racing ahead of the two Cons, the Autobot quickly looked for somewhere she could lay low for some time. Spying a fast food restaurant, Arcee quickly yet calmly entered the establishment's parking lot. Parking in one of the front spots, Arcee made sure that no humans were looking and deactivated her hologram.

It seems that she did it just at the right moment as less than a few seconds later, the two Cons came rushing past, completely unaware of the robot sitting in plan sight.

Suppressing a sigh of relief, Arcee just sat there for some time. But as she did so, she didn't notice a young human boy come walking out of the restaurant. He had a fairly slim build and was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a black and grey long sleeve shirt. The boy was also followed by another large human in a white apron. This human stopped at the building's door and it was at that moment when the Autobot noticed that the larger human was yelling at the boy.

"-leeping on the job Darby! Do you understand me!?" The boy turned and nodded at the man's words, Arcee noticing a bit of annoyance in the boy's stance as he did so.

"Yes Mister Stevenson! It won't happen again sir, I promise!" The boy called out, earning a sigh from this 'Stevenson' person.

"You better Darby, or you will be out of a job because of your bad sleeping habits." The man muttered before walking back inside. The boy meanwhile just muttered a curse or two while he walked away.

Lifting a small backpack over his shoulder, Jack couldn't help but curse at his luck. First he had a few bad experiences with a few customers earlier in the day (the last of which had left without paying, meaning that Jack would have to pay for the food out of his own pay check) but to make things worse he also got a talking to by his boss after a some really bad timing.

Muttering a curse or two, Jack started to make his way back towards his home. But as he did so, Jack noticed a certain blue motorcycle parked right in front of the KO Burger.

Now Jack had always wanted a motorcycle. Sure he couldn't afford one at the moment, but he would always fantasize about having one. It was much more preferable then having to walk or bike everywhere.

And this bike, with its blue paint-job and pink highlights, it looked fantasti-

-wait...that bike, it looked a bit too much like that one bike from his dream...could it be? If that was the same bike, then that would mean-

"Nope, not happening..." Taking a quick turn, Jack started to walk _away _from the motorcycle in front of him. But unknown to him, the Autobot had heard the boy's comment and couldn't help but watch him fairly closely in confusion and even a bit of interest.

What did this kind mean by that? And was that a bit of recognition in his eyes when he looked at her?

Arcee was about to continue such thoughts when something else caught her attention. Looking through one of her mirrors, Arcee noticed that the two Cons that had been trailing her were back, and they were waiting for her to make the first move.

Muttering yet another curse (and making sure that she remembered this little issue for a later time), Arcee once again activated her hologram and raced off, the Cons once again procuring her as she rounded a corner.

Hearing the sound of burning rubber, Jack returned his gaze to the bike he had been ignoring. Seeing the bike (now being ridden by a women wearing a biker helmet) suddenly drive out of sight with two purple cars chasing it, Jack couldn't help but sweat in concern. If there was trouble, that wouldn't only mean that-

"Meow."

Twitching at that seemingly innocent sound, Jack slowly turned his head towards the bag that he was holding. Slowly moving for a second or two, Jack watched as a small white cat poked it head out of the bag and turned towards him. Looking into the feline's eyes for a second or two, Jack merely grumbled.

"Seriously? Couldn't I just-"

"Meow."

"But this isn't a-"

"Meow."

"You won't let me get a single wor-"

"Meow."

Glaring at the cat for a second, Jack just waved off any further arguments and took off in a quick run in the direction of his house. But as he did so, the boy let out one more simple comment to finish off their conversation.

"You are a slave driver, you know that?"

"~Meow~"

_With Arcee, moments later:_

Back in the chase, Arcee was having a much harder time shaking the Cons this time around. No matter where she turned, the three (they must have called for back-up) purple cars kept pace and didn't let her out of their sights this time. Eventually the Autobot manged to at least find somewhere she could fight them without anyone noticing them, a old canal. Driving off a nearby bridge, Arcee landed with a loud thud and unknowingly drew the attention of a young boy who had been using the old canal for a nice place to drive his little AC car.

Two of the Cons followed her example and drove off the bridge as well. But when the third one attempted to do the same, a strange looking black motorcycle slammed into it and sent the vehicle sliding off course.

Quickly recovering, the Con took a quick look at the vehicle. Besides the strange appearance, the Con took notice of the fact that the bike wasn't being driven by anyone.

Was it a Autobot? Another Decepticon? Some kind of self driving human vehicle?

Not wanting to take any chances, the Con quickly transformed and pointed one of its blaster at the strange vehicle. The two of them remained still for a few moments, the vehicle remaining still and the Con waiting for the vehicle to either transform or bolt.

The silence was finally shattered when the sound of blaster fire caused the Con to divert its attention. Looking over the side of the bridge, the mech was able to get a glance at the fighting going on below. But this quick distraction gave the unknown cycle the chance it needed. Reeving its engine, the moment the Con turned its head the bike rushed forward and made a beeline towards the massive machine.

Hearing the incoming vehicle, the Decepticon quickly twisted its arm around and began to fire.

Twisting back and forth, the bike was able to dodge most of the blasts fairly easily. As the bike rapidly approached the Con however, a strange blue portal-like construct suddenly appeared a mere few feet in front of the Cybertronian. Surprised by the construct, the Con didn't have enough time to react as the motorcycle drove into the strange apparition.

Focusing on the strange portal, the Con was expecting the small vehicle to come rushing through the portal and try to ram it once again. But imagine its surprise when instead of a small metal bike...there was a even smaller humanoid figure instead? Hell, the Con was so surprised that it didn't have the chance to react when the armored figure delivered a powerful kick to its chest.

The kick was so powerful in fact that it knocked the Con to the ground. Landing on the machine's chest, the figure quickly drew his sword and effectively sliced the Con's blaster in half. With energon spewing from the gaping wound, the Con looked on in fear as the armored figure brought his blade down towards its spark chamber, the figure's blue eyes glowing ever brighter.

**_-Slick!-_**

As the Con's spark faded, the machine's limbs went limp and crashed to the ground with a thud. This sound unfortunately alerted the other Decepticons to the conflict going on above them. While one of the duo continued to fire away at Arcee, the other instead aimed its blaster upward and inspected the damage. Upon seeing its ally's corpse, the Con imminently started to fire at Karas.

With his speed, Karas easily dodged every shot but every round that didn't hit him ended impacting the bridge instead. Being quite an old bridge, the huge structure was unable to take the punishment and Karas could already notice how unstable the bridge was become. Visual cracks were now present and the ominous creaking of the stone could be heard.

Not willing to take the chance, Karas quickly ran towards the side of the bridge and dove off it, aiming for the Con as a possible landing site. But even as this happened, the Decepticon continued to fire at the airborne warrior. With the small target now in the air, the Con's shots completely missed and slammed into the bridge's supports.

Unable to take anymore abuse from he Con's blaster fire, the bridge started to crumble and fall apart. The massive pillars that held the structure up toppled and fell along with the bridge itself, large amounts of stone collapsing to the ground in the meanwhile.

Even as this destruction occurred behind him however Karas tried not to notice any of it. He was aiming to use a hostile alien robot as a landing pad after all.

Speaking of which...

Making a quick and easily landing, Karas quickly made short work of the Con.

Grasping his sword with both of his hands, Karas quickly made a single powerful swing at the Decepticon's head. Making contact with the top portion of its head, Karas effectively sliced the Con's head in half. Staggering back for a moment, the Con briefly stood completely still...mostly due to the shock of having a good chunk of its head removed.

Still, this didn't last long. The Con soon enough fell to the ground, energon spewing from the massive chunk missing from its head.

Quickly wiping his sword clean of any remaining energon, the warrior quickly turned his attention to the final reaming hostile force in the area. He briefly considered engaging the enemy but stopped when he noticed that the femme was actually doing quite fine on her own. Still, that doesn't mean that he couldn't help her out just one more time...

...but this thought was cut short when Karas suddenly heard a horrified scream. Directing his attention to the source, the warrior noticed that a small human boy was about to be crushed by the falling remains of the bridge from just moments ago.

Using his enhanced speed, Karas quickly dove towards the boy and picked him up. Making sure that the boy was safe in his arms, Karas quickly gazed up at the danger above them and engaged his time altering abilities. Slowing down time for just a moment, the duo quickly vanished and reappeared on the complete other side of the canal, utterly safe from the massive debris.

Looking down at the young boy in his arms, Karas could tell that he was confused by the entire situation.

To Raf however, confused would be a major understatement.

All he wanted to do today was find a nice, quite place to drive his RC car and have bit of fun. He never expected to see cars suddenly drive off a bridge, land in front of him, and then transform into giant robots that then engaged in a fight to the death with each other.

And that doesn't even start to cover the issue of the human sized suit of armor that transformed _**from** _a empty motorcycle, who then proceeded to kill two of the giant robots and then save him from being crushed by a collapsing bridge in less then a few minutes.

So yeah...he was a tiny bit confused.

While caught up in his thoughts, Raf felt a reassuring hand grasp his shoulder. Glancing up at the armored figure, the boy couldn't help but sense a bit of familiarity in those eyes.

_"You okay?" _Karas asked. His voice although synthetic, still sounded a bit too young for the giant armor that this person was wearing.

Raf looked up at this rescuer and gave him a shaky shrug, "Y-yeah, I think so..." Briefly looking at the carnage around him, Raf couldn't help but ask one question that has been far overdue.

"Wha-what just happened?"

Karas could help but release a chuckle at that question. That was a question that had been poking him in the back of the head since the previous night. Lightly patting the boy on his back, Karas honestly answered the boy's question as best as he could.

_"Kid, I am just as confused as you are."_ The armored warrior shrugged, _"Giant robots are not my area of expertise."_

Raf raised a eyebrow at that comment, "Then what is your 'area of expertise'?"

Kara's fidgeted in place for a moment, unsure of how to respond to that. _"Well...that's complicated."_

"Complicated? How complicated can it b-" Raf was cut off when both of them heard a large metal frame fall to the ground. Looking over, the two noticed that not only had Arcee taken care of the remaining Con, but two new figures had also arrived. They both varied in size with one was just a bit taller then Arcee and had a yellow paint job while the other was much larger with a much greener covering.

"Wow..." Raf was amazed at the new arrivals. Karas on the other hand just remained silent and observed them.

Bumblebee quickly ran over and checked over Arcee, making sure that she was okay while Bulkhead provided cover just in case any more Decepticons showed up. Arcee quickly waved off her yellow friend but looked around in confusion when she noticed that something was missing.

"What is it?" Bulkhead asked, noticing his friend's distress.

Arcee continued to search the ruined canal, "There was a human here, I was trying to keep the Con's busy before they noticed him...but I don't know where he went."

Bulkhead shrugged his shoulders, "Eh, maybe he ran when he saw all the fighting started. It's not like a human would honestly stay an-" Bulkhead stopped mid sentence when Bumblebee elbowed him in the torso. Giving the scout a questing glance, the wrecker saw his friend gesture over at the other side of the canal. Following his gaze, his and Acree's optics widened when they noticed what the scout had discovered.

On the other side of the canal and away from the destruction was two humans. There was a smaller one, the same human Arcee had noticed earlier and then there was a much taller figure, one wearing armor...

Arcee was inwardly relieved to see that the small human was okay, but she froze once she noticed the armor that the individual that was holding the boy was wearing.

"Its you..." the Autobot muttered while her allies just continued to stare at the strange human. If one was to look close enough they could also see the gears slowly turning inside the two Autobot's heads. Remembering the tale that they had been told the previous night, the wrecker and scout turned their optics towards their fellow Autobot.

"Arcee...that guy looks a lot like the one from your story..." Bulkhead said, Bumblebee releasing several beeps in agreement.

Karas took a mental note once he heard that comment. Arcee, at least he knew her name now.

"Yeah, I know."

"So...you weren't kidding...were you?"

Arcee nearly had to suppress a smirk, "Nope."

In the meanwhile, Karas took noticed at the recognition in the Cybertronian's eyes. She clearly remembered him and if the conversation was anything to go by, then she had obviously informed her friends of his existence as well. Great...that's the last thing he needed, giant robots knowing about him. Sure it was easy to keep his existence hidden from the humans...but how were things going to play out when it concerned these metal giants?

"So..." Karas looked over towards the Cybertronians. Apparently, they wanted to talk to him...well, thats new. He couldn't say that his job normally involved talking to people...or giant robots, so this is kind of new to him.

"I never got a chance to thank you for last night." Arcee told him, causing Karas to nod in response.

_"There is no need for your thanks."_ The armored warrior told her, _"Even ones such as yourself are under my protection."_

Raf said nothing during this exchange, his head still hurting a bit due to all the things going on around him.

Curious about that particular response, Arcee pressed her own questions. "What do you mean by that? Is this city under your protection? Protection from what?"

Karas said nothing. It wasn't his duty to explain his purpose, but to just carry out the will of the city. If the city felt that the ones before him were worthy of his protection, then he would put his very existence on the line in order to keep them safe. If the city felt that the machines that he destroyed were a threat to anyone, then he would tear each and everyone of them apart without mercy.

That is his duty...the duty of a Karas.

_"I'm sorry, but that is not for me to say..."_ Karas informed the group.

Arcee frowned, she didn't understand. Not his to say? If he wasn't allowed to tell them...the who could?

Looking up at the sky and gazing at the setting sun, Karas decided that it was about time he headed out. Taking a quick glance at the child that was currently in his grasp, Karas gaze one last look at the trio of machines standing in front of him.

_"It seems that my time among you all has come to a close..."_

Not understanding what he meant at first, Arcee's optics suddenly widened once she noticed time began to slow down once again. But before the speed of time was beyond even her comprehension, Arcee's auto receptors were able to pick up one more comment from the armored warrior.

_"...but, maybe we will meet again in time. Is that alright?"_

"Wait!" Arcee tried to call out but by the time she was able to speak those very words, but Karas and Raf were gone from sight. Arcee release a tired sigh as she realized what had happened, Bulkhead and Bumblebee on the other hand...well, they were a bit more confused.

Knowing that there was no longer a reason for them being there, Arcee activated her communicator and radioed back to base. After waiting a few seconds Arcee heard the resident medic answer the call. Quickly asking to a bridge back to base (and for the medic to tell Agent Fowler about the dead Cons that were in the middle of the canal...hey, someone needed to clean up those piles of scrap), Arcee patently waited for their ride home.

As she waited however...a few things ran through her mind.

Who was this person? How many people fell under his 'protection'? Why were they under his protection as well? Its not like they needed it, they could easily hold their own against the Cons. Was it because of that monster from the night before? Were there more of them? Is that why she and the others were under his protection?

So many questions...

_"Nope, not happening..."_

And why did she get this weird feeling when she saw this kid from that fast food joint? Remembering her thoughts from earlier, Arcee started to think about the boy's comment towards her alternate mode. Could they be the same person or something? Its not like someone would react like that normally when they saw a blue motorcycle sitting outside their place of employment. But how could a kid like that do things like this? Its just not possible.

...but the impossible...hasn't exactly been _that _big of a deal recently.

But even if this was true, how could she prove it? How could she find a link between these two? Hell, all she had on this kid was his last name and a bit of his voice, what good would that do-

Wait...his _**voice**_! That's it!Accessing her archives, Arcee came across a certain pair of auto tracks that she needed to have analyzed. Sure it was a long shot but it was a hunch that she was willing to bet on. Besides, what else could explain that human's comments when he saw her...that recognition in his eyes? Sure, it could be a massive gambit...but she could at least test out her idea.

Running through the ground bridge once it appeared, Arcee made beeline towards Ratchet. Explaining her idea to the grumpy medic, Ratchet imminently refused the very concept. Claiming that he had more important things to do, the medic simply brushed off Arcee and turned his attention back to the console in front of him. Clearly annoyed by the medic's attitude, Arcee grabbed Ratchet by the shoulder, spun him around, and gave him her own suggestion.

"Well, you can either do this for me...or you could contact Agent Fowler right now like I mentioned before. Which one would you prefer?"

It only took a few seconds for Ratchet to decide on what to do...

Transmitting her data to Ratchet's console, Arcee watched as two auto documents appeared on the monitor. Two voice tracks that she had archived, one from today and one from the night before.

**-KARAS-**

**Auto tracks detected, beganing analysis.**

_"...but, maybe we will meet again in time. Is that alright?" _**-Entity Known as Karas.**

_"Yes Mister Stevenson! It won't happen again sir, I promise!"_ -**Human Known as Darby.**

**Alterations detected in Karas Auto file, proceeding with removal of alteration. **

**Alteration removed, commencing with Auto comparison of Karas/Darby Auto files.**

**Processing.**

**Processing.**

**Processing.**

**Processing Complete. Comparison Complete.**

**Conclusion:**

**Subject Karas and Darby, 100% Match.**

**-KARAS-**

* * *

Chapter Notes:

As to how the Cons found Arcee that quickly...lets just say, Starscream wasn't too happy that Cliff had escaped...so he kind of launched his attack the moment he had the chance.

Mister Stevenson is just a OC. We never actually got to see anyone else that worked at KO Burger (In fact half of the time it looked like Jack was the only guy working there) so I needed to give a name to someone there. Don't worry, there is very little chance of him reappearing again and if he does...it will either be to torment Jack (sorry Jack) or get tormented himself (as the jackass boss, he deserves it a bit).

For that motorcycle's appearance, go to my profile. Near the top you will find a link to it.

Yep, Cliff is alive! But will he stay like that? Will he meet a worse fate later? Or will he just be the guy who makes the bad jokes for the entire story? We will see...And before anyone asks, no...he won't be paired with Arcee...I don't think I would be able to write that pairing even if I wanted to.

And for those who STILL don't know who or what the hell Karas is...don't worry, you will get a in story explanation next chapter. You may not get EVERYTHING that soon, but you will get something that will give you an understanding about a what Karas is and why he is doing what he is doing.


	3. Chapter 2: Meet the Bots

Speech Legend:

"Human Speech/Cybertronian Speech"

_"Spirits Speech/Communications Line/Karas Talking"_

_'Thoughts'_

**"Inhuman/Non-Cybertronian Creatures/Intense screams or yelling/Introductions"**

* * *

**Chapter 2: Meet the Bots:**

_The Soul is everything._

_Completely devoted to protecting the City and its residents, the Guardian's soul must be a pure one. A soul that is tainted by the dark sins that reside inside the Mikura and others like them cannot be trusted in guarding the city and all those living inside it._

_A soul among the living is selected by the city's priestess, who takes the form of either a young girl or a white cat is destined to become the city's greatest protector, the Crow among the darkness._

_Karas._

* * *

After the battle from the previous day, Jack had returned Raf to his home without any delay. This wasn't the first time Jack had seen the boy however. Both being students from the same high school, Jack could recall seeing Raf in the halls from time to time. But besides that, Jack hadn't had that much contact with the boy and really didn't know him that much about him.

Sighing to himself, Jack turned his gaze towards the small kid. His new 'Job' along with his one at KO Burger had unfortunately left Jack with very little time to meet up with other kids his age and make friends. That was one of the few things that really bothered Jack about his after school duties but it wasn't something he could easily change.

Besides, with the new developments recently...Jack doubted that he would have that much free time from now on anyway.

The sounds of horns honking and tires screeching soon brought Jack out of his inner thoughts and made him stare off as the school's parking lot emptied itself. As Jack watched the cars crowed the exit however, he noticed a yellow blur fly by his eyes. Following this strange blur, Jack suddenly spotted Raf run towards a familiar looking yellow sports car.

In the back of his mind Jack heard a voice yell at Raf, to warn him to stay away from that car.

But what could he do? What reason would he have to do so? What justification would he have? Its not like he could warn him due to the whole 'Giant Robots' thing, Jack wasn't there last night...Karas was. Sure, he could tell Raf about the obvious 'Don't go into strange vehicles' but how would Jack know that Raf didn't know who the owner of that car that was?

Sighing to himself, Jack could only watch as the young boy climbed into the vehicle and drive off.

Making a mental note to investigate this at the first opportunity, Jack turned his back on the scene and started his trek back home. However, it turns out that making his way back home would be just as difficult as yesterday unfortunately. Because as the teen stared to walk away he noticed a familiar blue motorcycle sitting in the parking lot as well.

After two previous encounters, Jack was all too sure of who this mysterious vehicle was. And if what just happened to Raf was anything to go by then this motorcycle surely wasn't just going to sit there and watch him like last time.

Not wanting to make a scene, Jack slowly walked away from the building and down a nearby street. But in his eagerness, Jack unfortunately missed someone staring at him. Near the entrance of the school was a figure sitting in a wheelchair, a man with piercing red eyes.

**A few moments later, a short walk away from the School:**

Glancing behind him, Jack nearly cursed when he saw the motorcycle slowly following behind him. Thinking quickly, Jack dove into one of the nearby alleyways and took off in a dead sprint. But this attempt was also foiled when the motorcycle easily caught up to him. Coming to a quick halt, Jack couldn't help but watch as the motorcycle swerved to the side and come to stop in front of him.

"Take it easy kid." The 'Rider' said, "I only want to ask you a few questions."

Jack gave the bike a strange look, "Sorry, but my mom always told me to not talk to strangers." Jack attempted to walk away one more but when the motorcycle slowly drove past him and stopped in his path, he knew that option was out of the picture.

The 'Rider' gave Jack a annoyed look, "Well, just answer a question or two and we can see if I'm a stranger or not."

_'What?'_ Jack mentally questioned. What did this bot mean by that? Sure, he knew what this motorcycle alt form but there was no way that she could know about him...right?

"And how can we do that?"

The 'Rider' leaned forward, "Answer me one question."

Jack instinctively had a bad feeling when it came to this but agreed none the less (what could go wrong?), "Name it."

"You wouldn't to happen to know anyone that goes by the name Karas, would you?"

Well Crap.

Keeping his cool, Jack tried to respond with what anyone else in his position would have said if they were asked the same question.

"Whats a 'Karas'?" Arcee could just see the uncertainty in the boy's eyes as he said this, there was no way she could be wrong now.

The 'Rider' put her hand on her chin in 'thinking' manor, "Well, its a human-like person in armor who has been killing these monsters at night." Arcee said in a casual tone, "And he sounds remarkably like you actually."

Jack just stared at her, "Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?"

The 'Rider' just shrugged, "Doesn't make it any less true."

Tired of the 'Rider's' humor, Jack tossed his arms up in frustration and just turned his back to the motorcycle. Is this what these giant robots did in their free time? Screw around with random humans? Despite the fact that she likely did know who he was, Jack was not going to give her the satisfaction of actually getting him to admit it.

"I'm sorry to inform you, but I don't know anyone by the name of Ka-"

_**"KARAS!"**_

Both Jack and Arcee were surprised by the sudden outburst, neither sure of where it came from. Quickly looking for the source of such a yell, both the human and Autobot eventually noticed something at the other end of the ally that was violently running towards them.

It stood at a impressive height, only a few inches below Arcee's mech form. The creature had a fairly thin body with a skeletal torso dangling in the mid air. Its arms were fused to the creature's chest, metal spikes and pins forcing the limbs to remain in place. The creature was also seemingly lacking a set of legs, the lower section of the torso only having a few wires and metal pipes in their place instead. Supporting its body was more than a dozen metal legs (18 exactly) attached to its back. All of these legs were quite similar in design as a spider's except they were much longer and pointed at the end.

The monster's face looks like what would of happened if a wolf lost a fight with a sowing machine, the monster's jaw completely sewn together by numerous metal wires.

_'Another one?' _Despite the fact that this monster looked quite different, Arcee could tell that this one was similar to the creature from two days ago. Jack on the other hand...had quite a different reaction.

"Oh You've Got to be Kidding me!" Jack yelled in frustration, Arcee giving him a strange look before smirking. Jack caught this and quickly looked away with a cough. But before Arcee could make a remark the monster grabbed a nearby dumpster and tossed it towards the duo.

Reacting quickly, Arcee transformed and grabbed Jack. Bending her knees, the Cybertronian jumped high in the air and allowed the metal container to fly past them. Landing with a thump, Arcee quickly transformed her arm into its blaster form and opened fire. The monster was quick to react however and used its many legs to climb the ally's walls, dipping and dodging out of the blaster fire.

**_"You're Going to have to do better then that!"_ **the monster sneered, a chuckle emanating from the back of its throat.

Grunting in annoyance, Arcee somewhat gently lowered Jack back to the ground and transformed her other arm into a blaster as well. Now with double the firepower, Arcee continued to blast away at the walking arachnid-like creature. Her attacks proved quite ineffective however. Instead of dodging like last time, the monster intertwined many of its limbs together and created a shield for itself.

Standing behind the attacking Autobot, Jack looked on as the femme furiously attacked the monster, the Mikura.

Noticing that her shots were just bouncing off the creature, Jack let out a annoyed sigh. Sliding his backpack off his shoulder and opening it up, Jack stared at the clump of white fur that sitting between his history and science text books. After being slightly poked the white fuzzball uncurled itself and stretched out its little arms, revealing a small white cat. Ears twitching slightly, the small feline looked up at the boy with a somewhat serious look on its face.

"Meow?"

Jack resisted the urge to flick the cat and just returned its gaze, "Its time." the cat's eyes focused, "Lets get this over with already, okay?"

The feline just nodded and quickly crawled up the boy's arm. Settling on his shoulder, the small creature glared intently at the Mikura before it was suddenly engulfed in a massive blue light. Jack was engulfed in this light as well although he didn't seemed bothered by it. As the light grew in intensity, Arcee had to cover her optics while the Mikura screamed in pain, the light blinding its.

This light continued to shine for a few more moments before it started to fade. With the threat of her optics overloading, Arcee removed her hands from her line of sight and gazed at the source of the intense light.

Standing behind Jack was a strange new figure. This person was seemingly a young girl around Jack's age with light blue hair that was wrapped up in two ponytails. Wearing a brown jacket, blue skirt, and a pair of goggles on top of her head, the young girl placed both of her arms on to Jack's shoulders and started to chant something that even Arcee couldn't even understand.

The Mikura however...could. It imminently understood what was happening and it was damn sure not going to let it happen.

**_"NO YOU DON'T!" _**Charging head first towards the two fleshlings, the Mikura raised at least ten of its legs and launched them at the two humans.

**-Clang-**

Arcee wasn't going to let that happen however.

Seeing the attack coming, the Autobot quickly turned toward the dumpster that the Mikura had sent flying earlier. Grabbing the metal bin, Arcee pulled the dumpster around and kicked it between the Mikura and the humans. This caused the Mikura to impale it instead of the humans. Growling, the Mikura quickly dislodged its limbs from the metal box and tossed it aside before lashing out at the Autobot. Arcee quickly deployed her arm blades and started to block or deflect any of the limbs that got too close.

But this would turn out to be a impossible task. With the Mikura possessing so many arms, even a Autobot with hand to hand capabilities like Arcee's wasn't able to defend against so many incoming attackers at once. The two of them spent nearly a minute merely trading blows, with Arcee dodging, blocking, or parrying the monster's attacks while the Mikura used all of its limbs to target more the many vital areas that the Autobot had.

Things finally came to a stand still when the Mikura launched all but two of its legs at femme imminently tried to think of a way to get out of this situation but it was no use for three reasons.

1). The alleyway was too thin for her to simply roll out of the way.

2). The kid and whoever the other human was were currently behind her so jumping backwards was also not a option.

And 3). If Arcee tried to jump over the attack, she would then leave the two humans completely vulnerable.

All Arcee could do was bring up her arms and try to wait out the assault. Turns out though...that wouldn't be necessary.

A bright flash of light suddenly filled the alley and in the split second that it would've taken the monster's limbs to impale her, Arcee saw the same appendages miraculously fall to the ground, each sliced in half. Getting a familiar feeling in her spark, Arcee looked downward and noticed a particular set of armor standing in front of her.

_"Well, that was a close one."_ Flicking the blood off his katana, Karas turned his blade towards the Mikura in front of him. Staring at the stubs that had been its legs, the Mikura's mind was going a mile a minute due to the recent chain of events.

It had been so close, just a few more seconds and it could have gotten to the boy and torn him apart! But no, that machine...whatever it was had gotten in the way and now it not only had to deal with that machine but Karas too!? Its just not fair!

Growling, the Mikura propelled itself backwards with its two remaining legs, hoping to give some distance between itself and its two opponents. That proved a bit difficult however since it was now missing more then a few legs, but the Mikura made due with what it had left.

In response to this, Arcee quickly brought out her blasters and opened fire on the Mikura while Karas ran off in pursuit.

Blasting away, Arcee smirked as her shots smacked into the Mikura's back. Unlike the last creature she faced, this monster was clearly not as durable. This was proven correct when the Mikura screamed in pain, her blaster fire burning holes in the monster's back and torching it from the inside out.

Growling out of frustration and pain, the Mikura turned its head in retaliation. Its eyes blowing bright red for split second, the Mikura suddenly released a large stream of energy towards the Autobot. Rolling out of the energy's path, Arcee was easily able to dodge the monster's attack before continuing her own assault. Still blasting away at the monster in front of her, Arcee nearly grinned when she saw Karas reappear right next to one of the Mikura's legs.

Reaching out, Karas grabbed one of the creatures remaining legs and yanked it backwards. Losing one of its last supports, the Mikura tripped and slammed into the ground. Repressing a groan, the Mikura tried to push itself up but was interrupted when it felt something drag itself backwards. Flipping onto its back, the Mikura looked up and saw Karas, who was standing over the creature with his sword held up high.

But before Karas could end this monster's life, the Mikura's chest started to shake and convulse. Suddenly the monster's arms, which had been bolted and pinned to its chest, ripped themselves free (quite violently) and reached towards Karas in a attempt to tear his head off.

Karas didn't seem that surprised by this however. Letting go of the Mikura's leg, Karas merely tossed his sword (VERY HIGH) into the air and caught both arms in mid strike. Staring into the Mikura's eyes, the armored figure then violently ripped the abomination's remaining limbs from its body and allowed its torso to fall to the ground in a thud.

Releasing a banshee's scream, the Mikura started to flip and spasm uncontrollably. Being nothing but a torso now, the monster had nearly lost all of its self control due to the pain. Eyes glowing with more then simple rage, the monster started to randomly release blasts of energy from its eyes in the hopes of killing..well, anything.

These blasts were quite random due to the Mikura's mindset and missed nearly every target. Most of the blasts ended up flying into the sky or into one of the nearby walls but one or two of them were able to hit quite close to someone important. When one of these blasts nearly nicked Karas in the head, the armored figure figured that something had to be done about this.

Reaching down, Karas once again grabbed one of the Mikura's remaining legs and lifted it upward. Still releasing its optic blasts, the Mikura started to scream in surprise when Karas simply started to flail the creature around like a sack of potatoes.

Swinging the creature around, Karas began to smash the Mikura head first into anything it could reach. The walls, the ground, the dumpster from earlier, the Mikura could do nothing as its head was slowly smashed into a pile of scrap due to the blows. After more then a few swings the Mikura was no monger in any condition to use its optic blasts and was promptly dropped back to the ground.

Having its head crushed into slag and being nothing but a torso, the Mikura could do nothing as Karas finally caught his sword in mid air. Holding his sword with both hands, Karas wasted no time and swiftly sliced Mikura's head clean open in a single swing. Screaming in pain for a brief second, the Mikura quickly went limp...finally dead.

With the creature now disposed of, Arcee breathed a sigh of relief and transformed her arms back to normal. Hopefully that would be the last one of these monsters she would have to deal with for quite awhile. Decepticons were one thing, but these creatures? Yeah, Arcee could do without one of them for quite some time.

_"You okay?" _Karas asked, walking towards the femme as the Mikura faded from the alleyway.

Arcee shrugged, "Fine, that thing had nothing on the other one. What about you?"

_"Meh, I'm good."_ Arcee watched the armored figure walk passed her, not fazed by had just happened at all. It made sense when Arcee thought about it. If THIS was what Karas had been doing during all of the video clips then he was clearly used to it by now.

Her gaze following the armored figure as he walked passed her, Arcee's optics widened when she noticed what the boy was walking towards.

Standing behind Arcee was Jack and the unknown female from before...and now, Karas was standing next to them as well, completely separate from Jack, who was seemingly unconscious at the moment. Furthermore, surrounding the two humans was a blue dome that was seemingly protecting the two from any outside threats. This utterly confused the slag out of Arcee, who then stared intensely at Karas with one hell of a glare.

Noticing the glare (which felt quite similar to a look that his mother tended to give him), Karas just looked at Arcee and asked what she wanted. Pointing at the strange situation next to him, Karas quickly sheathed his sword and waved his arms in a calming gesture.

_"I can explain!"_ Karas yelled, not liking the glare that Arcee was giving him.

Arcee rolled her eyes and was about to reply when she heard sirens in the distance. Apparently someone had called the police due to all the noise that they had caused. With company on their way, Arcee quickly transformed into her alternate mode and drove up next to Karas and the two humans.

"You better!" Arcee said, "But unless you want the police to find you, your body, and that girl in the middle of a wreaked alley, you may want to come with me."

Karas was a bit torn by this. He could easily just say no, but she was right about one thing. Due to his body being right next to him, the police would be an issue if he didn't go with her and if he did go with her...what and the hell would happen concerning him and these giant machines. Would he get involved with what happened yesterday in that canal? Would he get interrogated by these giant machines about what he is and what the Mikura were?

His life would get a hell of alot more complicated...but what else could happen if he wen-

"What are you waiting for!"

Both Karas and Arcee (and the girl who was holding Jack's body) were caught off guard by the sudden voice and turned around. Standing at the entrance of the alley was a local girl from Jack's high school, one Jack somewhat recognized. Right after leaving his high school, Jack recalled seeing this same girl sitting right outside the entrance with a sketch book...but that was it.

When did she follow him? How long had she been standing there!? How much did she see!? WHY WASN'T SHE FREAKING OUT ABOUT THE GIANT ROBOT!?

"Go with her!" The girl yelled excitedly.

Still a bit shocked by the girls sudden appearance and the sirens getting a bit closer, Arcee and Karas both had their own take on the situation. Karas was trying his best to remain silent, using the fact that neither of them could see his face to his advantage. Arcee on the other hand...

"Scrap."

**Later: The Base.**

Taking the _two _humans back to base (and a cat, which suddenly replaced that mysterious girl once Karas returned to his body), Arcee had a chance to learn a bit about these two humans. The girl, who's name turned out to be Miko was a very excited girl. That was fairly clear seeing how she wouldn't stop yelling in excitement during the entire drive.

Jack on the hand tried his best to say as little as possible during the entire drive. With his cat once again ridding in his backpack once again (Arcee had asked why he was bringing it along but Jack said that the feline was important to his explanation and it wouldn't work without it), Jack tried to ignore everything around him and simply enjoy the ride...but that was a bit difficult seeing how there was someone screaming in his ear the whole time.

Meeting back up with Bumblebee on the way (who asked what took her so long), the two Autobots quickly entered their base and joined the rest of the team. The humans were in awe once they saw the rest of the Autobots, each for their different reasons.

Miko was utterly ecstatic, Raf was was just in utter surprise, and Jack? Jack was suppressing the urge to slam his head into a wall. There was more of them!? Oh, this was going to be a massive pain.

The large red and white mech approached the group and after glancing at the three humans for a second looked towards Arcee and Bumblebee for a explanation.

"Arcee, I thought you and Bumblebee were only to bring back **one** human..." the cranky medic asked, "So why are there three of them!?"

Arcee shrugged, "Hey, its not my fault humans multiple so quickly." Jack sent the femme a quick glare for that remark but she didn't seem to notice.

Ratchet meanwhile just grunted and looked off to the side, clearly still annoyed about the situation. This was also the moment when the other bots walked in on the conversation. Miko and Raf took this moment to introduce themselves, with Raf being quite polite while Miko nearly assaulted poor Bulkhead with quite a number of excited questions.

Jack on the other hand merely tried to make himself as unnoticeable as possible, but today wasn't his day now is it?

"So..." Raf asked the bots in general, "...if you guys are robots, who made you?"

"Ugh! Puh-_leez_..."

Ratchet just snorted and waved off the boy's question. Instead, a much larger robot approached the children instead. Towering over the humans was a bot who was even taller then the others, colored in red and blue paint was the leader of the Autobots.

"We are autonomous robotic organisms from the planet Cybertron." Optimus informed them, "More commonly known as Autobots."

Going into a small yet informative explanation, Optimus laid down most of the need to know information that concerned the Autobots. He basically described why they were there (Apparently it was due to a war over a fuel that doubled as their race's life force), who the Decepticons were (Who Arcee described as the jokers from the canal), and how they were going about dealing with them.

It was a war that had been going on for longer then any of the children could imagine, a war that started a bot that Optimus had once considered a brother. A vicious and maniputive Decepticon called Megatron, the leader of their destructive faction.

All in all, it was actually quite informative and Jack was quite shocked at all of it. Sure, he had to deal with spiritual threats as a Karas...but that doesn't mean that he couldn't be surprised at the revelation that there was a race of intergalactic robots that were fighting a secret war on earth. Still, he had yet to explain why the children were there, why get them even further involved in all of this?

So Jack decided to ask the million dollar question himself, "What does Megatron or any of this have to do with us?"

"Due to your interaction with and the ill intentions that the Decepticons have displayed toward your kind, it is best that you three remain under our watch," Optimus said. "At least until we can determine our enemy's intentions."

All the Autobots present seemed to agree with that statement...well, all but one of them anyway.

"With all due respect, the human children are in as much danger here as anywhere!" Ratchet quite verbally expressed his concerns.

"They have no protective shell!" Ratchet hissed before lifting up his metallic foot,. "If they get underfoot, they will go…_squish_!"

And to prove his point, Ratchet stomped his foot with a very loud thud. Raf, Jack, and Miko shuddered at the very thought of that. Getting stepped on was something that was always reserved for bugs when it concerned humans...but when it came to these metal titans, humans basically _were _bugs to them.

Optimus didn't seem too concerned however, "Then for the time being Ratchet, we must watch where we step."

Ratchet just rolled his eyes at his leader's remark but didn't say anything more about it. However, during the conversation Arcee noticed that someone wasn't there...

"Wheres Cliff...?" Arcee had just noticed that her partner was missing...which should have been much easier to figure out considering how vocal he normally is.

Jack looked at the blue femme in confusion, "Cliff?"

"Cliffjumper, he's my partner. Someone who would be every excited to meet _all of you_." Arcee replied to the young boy, putting a large emphasis on the last bit. While this was lost on Miko and Raf, Jack could easily tell what she was implying.

Well, at least Jack knew what to call that Red mech from yesterday now.

"Hm?" Bulkhead said, hoping to somehow escape the awkwardness that Miko had drove him into with her questions, "You and Bee were taking so long that he got bored and went out, he should be back fairly soon though."

Arcee...did not take it well. But it was ultimately Ratchet who blew up on the green wrecker, "What?! After getting nearly offlined yesterday, _You _let him go out just like that...with no one accompanying him!?"

Despite getting yelled in the face, Bulkhead didn't seem to understand why the medic (and Arcee) was so angry, "Cliff looked alright and he said that Doc gave him the go ahead." Arcee looked over at the medic in question and could clearly see that was bunch of scrap, "And besides, he said that he would take it easy if he saw any Cons."

"You told...Cliff of all bots, to not engage any Cons..."

"Thats right." Bulkhead nodded.

Arcee could just barley contain the rage she wanted to unleash upon the wrecker. Of all the Autobots, Cliffjumper was always one of the most head strong. If there was a fight that he could get into then you better be damn well ready to send a clean up crew in at a moments notice. So you could kind of understand Arcee's gripe...if there was anyone you could send into a situation where you _didn't _want them to get into a brawl, Cliffjumper would be one of the last bots you should send.

With the medic and femme fully prepared to kick his aft to Cybertron and back, Bulkhead was quite relieved when he heard a sudden beeping coming from Ratchet's console. Calmly (and cautiously) walking over to the console, Bulk released a sigh of relief when he saw that it was the bot's communication channel and it was coming from Cliffjumper.

"See? I told you." Bulkhead grinned, "Hes likely ready to come back and is calling for a bridge or something."

The Wrecker pressed a few buttons and looked toward the console's monitors, "Hey Cliff, hows it going?"

Static filled the command center for a few seconds before Cliffjumper's voiced echoed through the base. The bots, Arcee and Ratchet especially were relieved to hear their comrade's voice but were concerned when they heard something else in Cliffjumper's com link. It sounded like blaster fire.

_"Hey Bulk, do you mind getting the others...you won't believe what I found!"_ Cliff's voice sounded both excited and a bit terrified at the same time, which is never good when it came to someone like Cliff.

Optimus walked up to the console, "Cliffjumper, what have you found?"

_"Well, I was driving along when I noticed some of the cons escorting some supplies to a isolated patch of rocks. I followed them and...sneaked my way inside."_ Arcee rolled her eyes at her partner's definition of 'sneak' (Which normally involved more then a few Cons getting their visors punched inward), _"Once inside, I found a nice little mining operation. But that's not the best part!"_

Bumblebee beeped a few times (which Raf somehow translated to 'What...best part?' for Miko and Jack), which lead to Cliffjumper added one very important detail.

_"Its Megatron sir...he's here."_

The atmosphere in the Autobots base became deathly silent the moment they heard Cliffjumper's message. Megatron, the Decepticon leader was back? Sure, the Autobots had been preparing for such a event and were even expecting it but to know for certain that Megatron was currently on earth was unsettling. Even the humans were shocked, having just heard of this warlord and he was already here?

Baster fire still being heard in the background, Optimus slowly turned towards his team.

"Ratchet, you shall remain here with the children while the rest of us supports Cliffjumper." the medic nodded, "Be prepared to bridge us back at a moments notice. If Megatron is truly there, then a quick exit may be required."

Optimus then turned to look at the humans, "The three of you are to remain here with Ratchet." Miko and Ratchet both gave a disappointed sigh, neither of them liking the turn of events. Optimus then approached a seemingly empty tunnel with the other three Autobots trailing behind him.

The tunnel was suddenly consumed by a large swirling green vortex as the Cybertronians walked towards it. With the coordinates set on Cliffjumper's location, Optimus turned towards his team.

"Autobots," Optimus called. "Transform and roll **out**."

All four of them then transformed into their vehicle forms and drove through the portal, which then closed behind them in a flash of light. The three humans, who had been watching the entire scene just looked on in confusion and awe.

"W-what just happened?" Jack asked.

Annoyed by such a simply question, Ratchet waved his arm in the portals direction, "I transported them to the designated coordinates via the ground bridge," Ratchet made it sound like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

The three humans looked at him questioningly however, still in the dark about what exactly that meant. "What's a ground bridge?" Raf asked.

Ratchet sighed and turned back to the computer. "Scaled down version of Space-bridge technology," he grumbled. "Since we don't currently possess the means, or the Energon, required for intergalactic travel…"

That clicked something in Jack's head, "You're stuck here...on earth."

"With the likes of you, yes..." Ratchet replied with a good amount of distaste in his voice, "But _I _constructed the ground bridge to enable us to travel from here to _anywhere_ on your planet."

"Whoa!" Raf exclaimed. "Does it work for humans?"

Ratchet nodded with a bit of pride, "Naturally,"

"You mean I could just shoot on over and visit my folks in Tokyo?" Miko asked.

"Within moments," Ratchet suddenly got a fairly nasty grin on his face. "In fact..." Ratchet said, optics gleaming, "Allow me to send you there immediately, all three of you!"

Miko glared at the medic, "Watch it Ratchet."

Ratchet scoffed at the young girls threat and simply returned to his work. But before he could get any work done, a loud blaring alarm sounded through the base. The kids quickly covered their ears while Ratchet scanned his monitor for the cause of it. When he found it however the medic cursed openly and quickly shut off the alarm.

"W-what was that?" Jack asked, his ears still rinigng a little bit.

"Slag, it was the proximity alarm!" Ratchet then brought up a video stream and showed it to the kids. The screen then showed a slightly overweight African-American man getting out of a government chopper. Ratchet groaned in annoyance when he recognized who this was.

"Great...its Agent Fowler."

The kids looked confused for a second so Ratchet continued to explain, "Agent Fowler is our government designated liaison to the outside world, who tends to only make himself known when there is something to complain about."

Actually considering what he just said, the Autobot medic then turned to the children, "Considering the Voltaire nature that Agent Fowler normally processes, it would be wise if he did not know about your presence at our base." With that said, Ratchet quickly lead the children to a nearby wall to hide behind.

This proved to be a wise decision as the elevator opened up just after this and Agent Fowler stepped out, looking quite angry as he did so.

"Prime!" Fowler screamed, "I have a bone to pick with you! Do you have any idea how much damage you and your team just caused!?" Not seeing the Autobot leader, the agent continued to call for the Prime in anger. Rubbing his eyes in annoyance, Ratchet briefly left his console and approached the agent himself.

"Agent Fowler, Optimus and the others are currently in the middle of a mission. You will have to direct any and all problems you have to me." Ratchet regrettably told the agent, who groaned in return.

"Mission?! What could they possibly be doing!?" Fowler asked the medic, "After all the destruction you've caused in the last few days what more could you all need to do!?"

Ratchet glared at the human, "And what do you mean by that?"

As if he was reading off a checklist, Agent Fowler began name nearly every damage that had been reported in the last two days. "Seven wrecks, thirty-four fender benders." Fowler yelled, "A three hour traffic jam, numerous reports of a speeding motorcycle of unknown make and a black and yellow muscle car were all reported yesterday."

"Along with that, there was also the matter of the burned up alleyway that was reported just a hour or two ago!" Jack subconsciously twitched when he heard that one. It wasn't really the Autobots fault when it came to that one...

"With all the destruction you lot are causing, there needs to be one dandy explanation for all of this!" Ratchet sneered and aggressively approached the agent. Neither of them back down as Ratchet got up close and personal with the Agent, but of them coming face to face with the other.

"Now listen here you ungrateful pile of-" Ratchet was cut off when yet another alarm sounded through the base, this time being yet another communications call from the other Autobots.

_"This is Bulkhead calling base, do you read me!?" _Bulkhead roared over the com. line.

Ratchet gave Agent Fowler one last glare before rushing back to his console. Preparing the ground bridge just in case, the Autobot medic quickly answered his friend's distress call.

"I read you Bulkhead, whats the others status?" Ratchet asked, "Whats happening over there!?"

Just like with Cliffjumper's call from earlier, Ratchet could clearly hear the sound of blaster fire in background along with the numerous Cybertronians (Cons and Autobots alike) screaming at one another. Along with these however was also another audio frequency that Ratchet was picking up. It was unlike anything the bot had heard in all his years. It was like something out of the inferno itself, screaming for energon and blood alike. Whatever it was...Ratchet was not looking forward to finding out what it was exactly.

_"Ratchet! We need a way out of her pronto!"_ It was Arcee who answered the call this time, _"We have wounded and more then our fair share of Cons!"_

The medic nodded and began working on deploying another Space bridge to their position.

_"And Ratchet..."_ The medic in question briefly stopped working, listening intently to whatever Arcee had to say.

_"There's something else in here with us..."_

**_Next Time: Battle in the Mine, Karas reveals himself to the other Cybertronians...but what else dwells in this mine?_**

* * *

**Chapter**** Notes:**

Yep...I tossed Cliff right back into the fire. Sure he's fine, but trust me...things are going to get pretty nasty in there.

-About the fight this time, please remember Arcee was stuck in the very close environment and her movement was very limited. If she was in a area like where she fought the first Mikura, then there is a good chance that she would have been able to handle this one. She won't be at a disadvantage all the time.

-Why did Agent Fowler later then in canon? Well, he did have to deal with the mess that Arcee and Jack left in that alleyway, so he wasn't able to get there before Optimus and the others left for the mine.

-And for the remainder of the fic, I will be putting a sort of reference section for each Mikura that appears in this story. They will be in the chapter that the Mikura appears in and will describe their name, reasons behind it, their physical appearance, and their abilities/threat level.

**Mikura Archive:**

* * *

**(Prologue):**

**The Raging Driller:  
-This particular Mikura got its name from its hot temper and its drilling/earth based abilities. The monster's rage is universal, hating everything from humans, other Mikura, and anything else it can see (including Cybertonians) and will take a sick pleasure out of ripping them apart and eating them. Next there is the earth aspect, as this Mikura has the power to easily manipulate the earth with its ability to quickly move and drill through anything at a fast speed being its most noticeably feature.  
**

**Physical Characteristics:  
-Large, dominating stature. Its strength focusing the monster's arms and defense.  
-Has a second pair of limbs hidden in its shoulders.  
-Mouth full of razor sharp teeth, can be used to devour prey or tunnel through substances.  
-Large single red eye, similar to a tunneler's hat in a sense.  
Alternate form:  
-Can transform into a tiger-like alternate form, which increase speed but decreases durability.  
**

**Threat Level: 1.5  
-Physical defense can be quite durable, but is still nothing against the blade of a Karas.  
-Has more then one way to defend itself, and its extra limbs can be quite a surprise.  
-Its alternate form can provide itself with a new way to combat its foes and even a means of escape.  
-Ability to use the area around it to combat its foes.**

**Death:  
-Killed by Karas, cut in half after a long battle with Arcee and Karas.**

* * *

**(Chapter 2):  
**

**The Decaying Prison:  
-The name refers to** **the** **thin appearance of the Mikura and its mouth. The Mikura is a stealthy hunter, one that rarely makes itself known unless its desperate or sure of itself**. **Due to the fact that its mouth is wired shut, the Mikura can only devour a small amount of its prey** **which results in its thin appearance (thin and decaying, like a skeleton) and less aggressive strategy. The prison bit refers to the bound arms of the Mikura, which is similar to a strait jacket.**

**Physical Characteristics:  
-Head of a mutated wolf, its mouth sown shut with metal wires and nails (can fire optic blasts from its eyes).  
-Humanoid body, skeletal in appearance. Legs were cut off at the knee caps and tied together with cloth.  
-Arms bound to the torso in a similar fashion to a straight jacket, huge spikes holding them in place.  
-Processes 18 spider-like legs, attached to its back. All of them with a spear-like tip.  
Alternate mode:  
-Has the ability to transform into a cross between a wolf and a missle, capable of flying through the air at incredible speeds while also retaining its thin appearance. But due to its death at the hands of Karas and small enviroment, this Mikura was unable to display this form openly.  
**

**Threat level: 1  
-Has multiple limbs and cannot be taken out by removing one or two.  
-Physical body is weak, cannot take much punishment (due to its lack of food and skeletal body structure).  
-Prefers to attack its foes when they are weak or vulnerable. Which is why he attacked Karas while he was in human form.**


	4. Chapter 3: A Dark New Element

Speech Legend:

"Human Speech/Cybertronian Speech"

**[Bumblebee Speach] -Beep Translation**

_"Spirits Speech/Communications Line/Karas Talking"_

_'Thoughts'_

**"Inhuman/Non-Cybertronian Creatures/Intense screams or yelling/Introductions"**

* * *

**Chapter 3: A Dark New Element.**

_The Mikura are a wild, monstrous race of creatures._

_Formerly of the Youkai, peaceful spirits of the world, the Mikura have been corrupted in not only their form but in essence as well._

_One their own however, the Mikura are a savage and unruly lot, creatures that seek only destruction, chaos, and death._

_But with an entity leading them, the Mikura's chaotic nature could lead to darkness on a much larger scale._

* * *

_A few Minutes Prior, the Decepticon's Mining Operation:_

Ducking behind a nearby pile of storage boxes, Cliffjumper wondered how he got into this situation...

Oh yeah!

He was bored.

With his partner and Bee taking too long to get back, Cliff hand decided that a nice casual drive was something that could kill time well enough. With Ratchet distracted (Bulkhead had accidentally broke one of the medic's tools in his bordom and Ratchet was busy yelling at him), Cliff had been able to quietly sneak through a ground bridge and get to a nice open road.

Sure, Ratchet was going to blow a gasket when he found out...but hey, why worry about that now?

During that relaxing drive however, Cliffjumper spotted a few Cons transporting something that looked construction equipment. One to never miss out of some Con smack down, the Autobot followed the Cons and eventually arrived at a seemingly abandoned mountain range. 'Sneaking' his way inside (in his own style of course), the Autobot was shocked to find that instead of a bunch of rocks inside the mountain...instead there was even MORE Decepticons and even better, Energon!

Cliffjumper just couldn't resist the fantastic opportunity that was in front of him! Not only were there more then enough Cons for even Cliffjumper to handle, but there was a slue of Energon here as well! Due to the minimal supply that the Autobots currently had in their possession, any amount of the life giving material was essential to their war effort.

Still, with so many Decepticons in the area...even Cliff knew that there were far too many Cons for him to handle single handily. Especially after yesterday Cliffjumper knew that back-up would be needed if they were going kick the Cons out of this hole. Reaching up to activate his communicator, Cliffjumper stopped when he heard a familiar voice coming from up above.

"...the drones have been mining without pause during you absence and amassed quite a stockpile."

It sounded like a weasel who had the unfortunate habit of either screwing up royally or stabbing you in the back.

Sticking his head slightly out of his cover, Cliffjumper gazed up at the source of the voice and...yep, it was Starscream.

The Con in question pointed at a nearby drone, "You there! Fetch me a sample!"

Cliffjumper just shuttered at the sound of that Decepticon's voice, out of all the Cons he knew of, none were as sneaky, smiley, or just as pathetically annoying as Starscream was. Hell, if it wasn't for the fact that he was trying to remain hidden, Cliffjumper would blast Starscre-

**"Starscream!"**

While the seeker's voice made Cliffjumper freeze in utter disgust, this new voice made him do the same for a whole other reason.

This time...it was out of fear. There were very few Cons that had this effect on the Autobot, hell most of these Cons were actually already offline (some by his own servos while others meet far worse fates). But this one...he had a dark, threatening tone...one that promised a very painful death, one that wouldn't arrive until you were rolling around in agony.

"Now that I've returned, I will issue the commands." The dark voice echoed throughout the cavern, large thunderous steps coming matching from the darkness.

Starscream cowered for a split second before bowing his head.

"Yes...Lord Megatron."

The lord of the Decepticons had returned. His red, piercing optics surveying everything around him. It had been three long years since the Decepticon leader had journeyed off into space and now he had returned. Sure, Optimus had been expecting this day for quite some time...but now that it was here? It sent chills down Cliffjumper's spine.

If calling for back-up was a good idea before...then now it was a absolute necessity.

Ducking behind his cover once again, Cliffjumper quickly tried to call back to base but found that the signal was taking a but longer to get there then it should have. Cliff imminently figured that it was the mountain they were in, the large structure and the Con's activity inside it must have been interfering with his call.

Still, while waiting to connect back to the base Cliffjumper couldn't help but listen in on the Con's conversation.

Apparently, Starscream had expected Megatron to return to Earth with a grand army of Decepticons following his every command. But while Megatron had confirmed that they would have a army at his beck and call, he also revealed that he had found a much more intriguing way to bring forth his army besides the use of a space bridge. Holding a large purple crystal in his hand, Megatron twisted his sharp teeth in to a sinister grin.

"The solidified of the matter the ancient texts refer to as the 'Blood' of Unicron."

Starscream looked intently at the crystal, his interest peaked, "Unicron the destroyer? But it is said that his blood is the anti-spark..."

"Plucked from cosmic shores, gaze upon...**_Dark Energon._**"

Starscream's optics widened at the implication, "Legend tells that it holds the power to...revive the dead."

"We only require a cadaver to be certain," Megatron grinned before glancing at his second in command, "Are you willing to make the ultimate sacrifice?"

Starscream chuckled nervously,"Heh, that won't be necessary Lord Megatron," The seeker fidgeted with his claws for a second before spying a nearby drone. Quickly calling the drone up to their position, Starscream grinned as he lead the unsuspecting drone to the center platform.

Not liking where this was going, Cliffjumper was relieved when he heard a familiar voice finally come through his communicator, _"Hey Cliff, hows it going?"_ Bulkhead asked the red Autobot.

Cliff was about to reply when he heard a very loud bang go off above him. Looking upward, the bot cringed when he saw the drone from a moment ago lying dead on the platform, a giant hole haven been blown in its chest. Looking for the source, the Autobot quickly spied Megatron himself, his fusion cannon smoking from a recent firing.

"Hey Bulk, do you mind getting the others..." Cliffjumper said into his com. link, "...you won't believe what I found!"

The com was silent for a moment, likely because Bulkhead was rounding up the rest of the team. But when someone finally replied it wasn't Bulkhead, but Optimus himself, _"Cliffjumper, what have you found?"_

Releasing a sigh, Cliffjumper began to explain his tale, "Well, I was driving along when I noticed some of the cons escorting some supplies to a isolated patch of rocks. I followed them and...sneaked my way inside."

Cliff could practically see his partner roll her eyes at the mention of him sneaking in someone...hey! It only involved two scrapped Cons this time!

"Once inside, I found a nice little mining operation. But that's not the best part!" Looking back up at the center platform, Cliffjumper nearly gasped when he saw Megatron plunge the shard of Dark Energon into the drone's motionless chest.

_ "**[What...best part?]**_" Bumblebee asked.

Letting out a very vocal gulp, Cliff broke the news to the rest of the team.

"Its Megatron sir...he's here."

A dark silence fell over the team and Cliffjumper could completely understand. Having seen the titan himself, Cliff could imagine what the others were going through. Still, all silence on his end was shattered when he heard more blaster fire going on above him. Looking up, Cliffjumper saw something he would never have expected.

The drone from earlier was up and moving...with that hole STILL in its chest!

That's not all however. It was also glowing bright purple at its joints and its optics were dull and lifeless. As he watched it stalk towards another Con, Cliff just stared in shock when he saw the Con in question suddenly get blasted in the head, a giant chunk been blown away. Despite this however, the Con just continued to walk forward as if nothing happened.

_"Cliffjumper, we will be at your position shortly."_ Optimus told Cliffjumper over the com. link, _"Hold on until then."_

"Understood sir." Cutting the line, Cliffjumper quickly deployed his blasters and survey the area. All he had to do now was to secure the area for his team...right? Although, seeing Megatron suddenly slice the strange Decepticon in half didn't do much for his confidence, especially since the Con was still online at this point, both halves of it unfortunately.

"Ugh, just put the slagging Con out of his misery already..." Cliff muttered to himself.

Watching the strange Con flail around like a fish out of water, Cliff was relieved to see a ground bridge open up behind him while the rest of his team (besides Ratchet of course) rushed through. Bringing out their ranged weapons, the other Autobots quickly followed Cliffjumper's example and ducked behind a nearby crate.

Cliffjumper chuckled to himself as Arcee positioned herself next to him, "Hey guys, welcome to the party."

Instead of replying to her partner, Arcee simply elbowed Cliffjumper while Optimus silently approached the duo.

"Status report."

Cliffjumper quickly nodded and gestured towards the center platform, "Megatron seems to be running tests on what would happen if he applied Dark Energon to a corpse," Cliff then pointed towards the flailing corpse just next to Megatron, "That resulted in a drone Megatron himself offlined just moments before suddenly coming back to life before ripping another Con's head off sir."

Bulkhead was a bit skeptical when it came to the subject of the formerly mythical substance,"Dark Energon? You're joking right?"

Cliffjumper gave his friend a stern look, maybe this is what it was like for Arcee when Bulkhead and himself didn't believe her own story? "Well Bulk, I heard it come from Old Bucket head himself and do you know of another substance that causes the dead to come back to life?"

Bulkhead glared at the mech, "Point taken."

Smirking. Cliffjumper then turned to the rest of the team.

"Okay, now if anyone else has any other questions," Cliffjumper waited but when no one spoke up he continued, "Now, I've been watching these guys for a bit now and I've come up with a idea."

Arcee chuckled at that but a glare from Cliff got her to stop...for the most part at least. Turning his attention back the the Cons, Cliff continued, "Most of these Cons are just drones, primarily focused on mining the Energon." Indeed, most of the Cons were mostly focused on either mining or moving the blue stuff but there were more then a few guards in the area as well.

"If we are quiet enough, we should be able to-"

**_-Crash!-_**

Cliffjumper didn't get to finish when he and the others heard a sudden crash.

Looking to the side, the Autobots saw a lone Vehicon drone standing just a few yards away from them. Apparently it had noticed the group and was so shocked that is dropped the case of Energon that it had been carrying. Unfortunately this also alerted the other Decepticons and now every nearby Con was starring at the team, Megatron's red optics staring directly into Optimus's.

Muttering a quick curse, Cliffjumper slowly looked at the single drone that had revealed their location. Sending a quick glance to the green wrecker besides him, Cliffjumper watched as Bulkhead quickly stalked towards the purple mech and smacked it over the head with his mace. Hearing the satisfying sound of a Con's head getting caved in, Cliffjumper turned his attention back to Old Bucket head himself just as he began to speak.

"Well Starscream, it appears that while your mine has plenty of Energon," Starscream slowly backed away, "It also lacks any proper security..."

Starscream imminently bowed to the massive Con, "Please forgive me Lord Megatron, I assure you that the entrance was heavily guarded. They must of-"

"**Silence!**" Megatron roared, quickly shutting up his second in command. Turning his attention back to the Autobots, Megatron's sharp teeth slowly twisted into a large grin.

"Optimus, its nice seeing you again."

Optimus glared at the large Decepticon, his blasters at the ready, "Megatron, why have you returned to this planet?"

Megatron merely laughed, reached down, and grabbed something near his metal feet. Lifting the object in question into view (and keeping it out of arms reach), the rest of the bots looked on in horror as they gazed at the flailing upper half of the Decepticon Cliffjumper had spoken of earlier. It was deformed, pieces of metal were missing, and worst of all (besides the whole 'missing its over half' situation)...it still had the gaping hole in the middle of its torso.

"I've discovered quite the _advantage _during my time among the cosmos." Megatron grinned to himself, "Wouldn't you agree Optimus?"

Just gazing at the abomination in Megatron's hand gave the Prime a sick feeling in his spark, "Megatron...what have you done..."

Having heard similar speeches from the Prime before, Megatron merely tossed the terrorcon torso off to the side, "Heh, I've merely discovered a power that will give me a force beyond anything the galaxy has ever witnessed!"

"But for you Optimus...I am more then willing to end you, here and now!" Megatron roared, his fusion cannon glowing as he pointed it at his old enemy, "Decepticons! **_Slaughter them!_**"

Every Decepticon in the area who was armed and ready instantly followed their master's command and fired on the Autobots. Despite their limited numbers at the moment due to most of their forces being made up of simple mining drones, the Cons quickly forced the Autobots to dive back behind the cover from earlier.

Bringing their blasters out, the Autobots quickly returned fire and began to slowly cut down Megatron's forces...although the big man himself was a whole other issue.

Jumping down from the platform, the massive Decepticon quickly made his way over to the Autobot's current location. Smashing his way through the limited cover, Megatron roared and deployed a long grey sword before swinging it towards his old foe. Optimus also quickly brought out one of his own swords and meet the ancient Decepticon in a clash of steel.

Wrestling with each other for a moment or two, Optimus ended the stalemate with a quick kick to Megatron's torso. Grunting from the blow, the Decepticon quickly dove back into the fight with a quick swing at the Prime's side. Optimus of course blocked this with his own sword, sparks flying when the swords screeched against one another.

With their cover blown and their leader currently engaged in a fierce struggle, the other Autobots kept moving and continued to slag Decepticons at every opportunity. Bumblebee and Arcee stayed together and covered each others backs, blasting any Cons that got in their sights. Bulkhead pummeled Con after Con with his mace, leaving piles of scrap in his wake.

And Cliffjumper? He had a chicken who really needed to have its wings clipped.

Using some of the nearby energon crates as a set of stairs, Cliffjumper quickly made his way to the center of the chamber. Grabbing onto the platform's edge and quickly pulling himself up, Cliff eagerly grinned when he spotted a certain Cybertronian nearby.

"Hey Screamer, long time no see! " Starscream had no time to respond as the Autobot tackled him to the ground. Starscream instantly tried to kick the Autobot off of him but only got a fist to the face for his trouble. Cliffjumper on the other hand was likely enjoying this far more then he should have but hey, its Starscream. Out of all the Decepticons that he knew, Starscream had this coming more then nearly everyone else.

But while he was beating the Energon out of the seeker he felt a sudden vibration in the rocks beneath him. Thinking it was the terrified Decepticon Cliffjumper laughed, "Whats a matter Starscream? You scared of a little punishment?"

Starscream though looked a bit confused, "What do you mean?! That's not m-**Bam-**"

Smacking Starscream one more time for good measure, Cliffjumper looked on in confusion as the vibrations suddenly started to get worse. And it wasn't just him either, the other Autobots and Decepticons had also noticed the the strange vibrations as well. In fact, the entire cavern was starting to shake now, chunks of rocks falling from the ceiling as the vibrations got worse.

Even Megatron and Optimus looked around in confusion (both of them still keeping their focus on the battle at hand of course).

One of the Vehicons pushed its arm against the nearby wall so it could support itself against the vibrations. It basically vocalized everyone's current thoughts on the situation, "What in the _pit_ is going on?!"

And then..._**IT**_ broke through.

It was the wall that some unsuspecting Vehicons were standing in front of that become its entrance. Smashing through both rock and Energon alike came a gigantic abomination, something that the Cybertronians had never witnessed before in their long lives.

It was like a combination between a snake and a centipede, its long twisted metal body was sectioned off into individual parts while at least a dozen small metallic legs pushed it along. Each of these sections looked similar to magma about to burst from the earth, red glowing veins looking like they were about to burst from the metal frame. And finally, at the very start of the gigantic creature of a reptilian head, massive jaws that looked like they could devour a Cybertonian whole in one bite.

As more of its gigantic body made it was into the chamber, both Autobot and Decepticon watched as the creature's reptilian-like head roared up into the sky, red ooze dripping from its gigantic fangs.

"What is _that!?_" Starscream...well, screamed.

Cliffjumper just gave the Con a dirty look and got off of him, "How am I suppose to know? This is _your _mine after all."

"You-!" The Con's second in command started to sneer before a shadow came over the two mechs. Looking up, both Autobot and Decepticon looked straight into the eyes of the massive metal serpent. It was just staring down at the duo, its _three gleaming _red eyes just staring into the sparks of the two Cybertronians.

"Scra-"

Surging forward, the massive serpent dove into the chamber's center platform, utterly tearing the metal platform into pieces as its head tore right through it. The two mechs quickly jumped out of the way, with Starscream barley able to make it to another lower platform while Cliffjumper was unfortunately nicked by the monster's massive teeth, his right leg nearly getting ripped off in the process.

Luckily, the Autobot still manged to grab hold of what remained of the platform, hanging on for dear life.

Getting back to his feet, Starscream stared at the giant creature, more then one emotion running through his processor. "What are you all waiting for!? Kill that thing!" Starscream roared to his remaining troops, who imminently started to blast away at the giant mechanical monster. Too bad their blasters had basically no effect on the monster. It just ignored the blaster fire and continued to sleek forward into the cavern.

With the rest of the Cons focusing on another target, the Autobots (minus Cliffjumper for the moment) quickly regrouped near the entrance to the mine, which was starting to become even more unstable as time went on. But that was not what the bots were focusing on. _That _spot was reserved for the giant metallic serpent, who's body was slowly filling the entire chamber as it continued to progress forward.

After destroying the platform that Cliffjumper and Starscream had been previously fighting on (not much of a fight, but still), the monster roared its head up in triumph again. This caused the Autobots to notice something, something stuck between its teeth.

Bumblebee was the one who noticed it first, "**[Is that...the Decepticon Megatron was messing around with?]**"

Indeed, between the monster's massive teeth was the upper half of the same Terrorcon that Megatron had shown the team before tossing it to the side. With Dark Energon oozing from the undead mech, the giant serpent quickly mashed its jaws together and devoured the Con in one swift movement.

"Did it just...eat...that Con?" Arcee asked, unsure if it was just her optics playing a trick on her. But Bulkhead slowly nodded, confirming that is was **not **just Arcee seeing things. But that wasn't the worst of it however...

The sudden addition of Dark Energon had quite a dramatic affect on the massive creature. The red veins throughout the creature suddenly turned a dark purple, the same tone as the dark substance itself. Cracks started to develop near the creatures eyes, the metal around the eyes bloating as their color shifted from the bright orange color they had previously had into the sickly color of Dark Energon. Finally, the sections that made of the creature's body either started to crack open or did the opposite

The monster became extremely violent at this point, no longer was it slowly moving through the cavern while ignoring anything around it.

_Now_, the monster violently started to tear the cavern apart. Using its massive body, the monstrous serpent either crushed or just devoured any Decepticon that was foolish enough to get in its way. Starscream himself was nearly eaten as well when he attempted to blast one of the monster's eyes out with his arm mounted rockets (which didn't do a damn thing to it) but was saved due to his quick thinking...

...meaning that he just transformed and flew out of the creature's reach.

The Autobots on the other hand weren't willing to engage such a monster in a enclosed area such as this. After recovering Cliffjumper (and scrapping any Decepticons that got in their way), the Autobots quickly tried to call Ratchet so they could get a Ground Bridge.

Unfortunately just like with Cliffjumper earlier attempt, the cavern's mineral deposits (along with any of the Con's remaining gear) messed with their communications, leaving the Autobots stuck between a bunch of Cons and a giant metal serpent filled with Dark Energon.

In order to by his team some time, Optimus quickly attacked the creature, hoping to draw it away from his team and by them time to ground bridge them out of this nightmare. Hitting it a few times in the eyes, the creature growled in annoyance and flew through the air towards the Prime in a attempt to crush him.

Optimus was able to dodge the first few attempts, resulting in the creature smashing its head into the cavern and crushing more of the Decepticon's equipment or just leaving massive indents in the stone walls.

Growling in annoyance due to the repeated failures, the creature unleashed a blood (or Energon) curdling roar. In the middle of this terrifying roar, Optimus spotted a small orb of energy being formed in the creature's mouth. Wiping its head around with a snap, the serpent let the small orb fly through the air and towards the Prime's current position.

Jumping out of the way, Optimus was able to get some distance between himself and the orb just as it touched the cavern's wall...

_**-KaBoom!-**_

...causing a massive purple explosion to engulf the entire wall. Kicking up a massive amount of dirt, the remaining Cybertronians gasped when they saw the destruction the small orb had caused. Instead of seeing a large wall of stone, one that had platforms of metal and hunks of energon stuck to it...there was now nothing but a large gaping crater in its place...a crater burned with Dark Energon.

Turning his attention away from the crater, Optimus quickly got to his feet and processed to take off in a sprint. If this monster hit him with one of those then there would be less pieces of him left to build a Vehicon's foot let alone a entire Cybertronian.

It was a wise decision, as the monster was already in the process of charging another one the same energy blasts. Fully intent of obliterating the Prime with this one, Optimus had little to no time to act as the creature set its sights on the Autobot.

But as the creature was about to launch its attack, a large grey mech landed on the creature's head. Pointing his fusion cannon at the creature's center eye, Megatron let loose a powerful battle cry before blasting away at the creature's optic. The monster screamed in pain and desperately tried to shake the massive Decepticon off by ramming its head into nearby walls, platforms, and even a few unfortunate Decepticons.

"Die **-Boom-** you** -Boom-** pile of **-Boom-** _Slag!_" Megatron continued to blase away at the beast but was having no noticeable progress. Curing his own lack of firepower, the Decepticon jumped away from the beast before he was crushed between it and a pile of rocks.

Landing next to his cowering second in command, the grey mech grabbed the pitiful Decepticon by the neck stared into his optics.

"Call the rest of the troops to fallback to the Nemesis," Megatron sneered, "Then order Soundwave to blow the mine from orbit!"

Starscream looked at his leader in confusion, "But sir...the Energo-" Megatron promptly slammed the seeker into the ground for even questioning his commands.

"The mine is _Lost!_" Megatron yelled before tossing the Con nearly off the platform, "Now **Go! **Before I feed you to this creature _myself!_"

"Y-yes, Lord Megatron." With that, Starscream transformed into his alt mode and flew back to the ship, leaving Megatron, the Autobots, and what little Vehicons that were left to face this monster's wrath by themselves.

Spotting the retreating Decepticon, Arcee let out annoyed mutter, "Well, did anyone not see that coming?"

The other members of team Prime muttered in agreement, all of them but Bulkhead however. Bulkhead was busy messing with the his communicator, which apparently felt like it was about time to start working again. With the sound of static slowly dissipating, Bulkhead decided to try calling base one more time,"This is Bulkhead calling base, do you read me!?"

A few seconds went by with no reaction out of the com. line, resulting in all of the Autobots considering just making a run for it. If they didn't get help now then they might as well...

"_I read you Bulkhead, whats the others status?"_ the team felt a massive bit of relief come over them when Ratchet's grumpy voice erupted through the static,_ "Whats happening over there!?"_

Bulkhead was about to respond when the creature released another monstrous roar, one so loud that it made the Autobots cover their auto-receptors due to the sudden pain. Out of the four, Arcee managed to recover the quickest and quickly connected to the base as well.

"Ratchet! We need a way out of her pronto!" Arcee screamed into her communicator "We have wounded and more then our fair share of Cons!"

Unfortunately, this was also the moment when the monster launched another one of his energy blasts. This one however wasn't aimed for a running Autobot or a Decepticon. Somehow the creature had heard the teams attempts to contact the outside world and it was damn sure not going to let them get away with it that easily.

Sure its aim was off, but by launching this blast towards the entrance itself, the beast essentially destroyed the only way out of the mine for anyone who couldn't fly or dig its way out of the ruined cavern.

Seeing their only other way out of the cavern collapse before her optics, Arcee added one more...fairly important detail.

"And Ratchet...There's something else in here with us..."

But during this conversation, the sound metal tearing suddenly caught the Autobot's attention. Looking up towards its source, Arcee's spark nearly exploded in her chest at what she saw.

The monster had caught Optimus's arm in...its teeth.

The noble Prime was using everything in his power to keep the creature from closing its jaws and crushing his limb, but there was only so much he could do at this point.

_Back at the Base, Same Time:_

_"...it has Optimus..."_

Ratchet stared at his console, the weight of the situation taking hold.

It had been quite a while since the old medic had heard Arcee sound like that. In fact, the last time he had heard her sound so concerned was when her previous partner, Tailgate was lost.

Still, there was no time to lose!

Quickly punching in the coordinates for Arcee's com. signal, Ratchet quickly opened up a ground bridge to their location. As the green portal was generated however, the Autobot's medic failed to notice a strange occurrence happening with the current...guests at the base.

Back with the children, Jack suddenly felt terrible feeling crawl up his spine the moment the ground bridge was activated. It was like there was something sinister on the other side of the bridge. Due to his experiences as a Karas, Jack was normally fine in the presence of something like this...but this time? It was different, while undoubtedly a Mikura...but something was wrong with it. It was like there was another force altering the creature, making it even more savage, more demented, and more destructive.

It was sickening...and the cat in his backpack thought so too.

Speaking of which...

"Um...why do you have a cat in your backpack?" Raf asked the teen. Seeing a small white cat poke its head out of someone's backpack during a situation like this was...kind of weird.

Miko patted the young boy on the shoulder, "I asked the very same thing, but he said it was private or something...lame."

Rolling his eyes at Miko's comment, Jack reached over his shoulder and grabbed his backpack. Reaching into his backpack and pulling out the white feline in question. Getting the same stern look that he got earlier that same day, Jack let out a small curse before placing the small cat on his shoulder.

Taking a deep breath, Jack then turned back to the two humans standing behind him and gave them a look that just screamed 'Please don't make a huge deal about this'.

"Guys...please try not to freak out ..."

"What do mean?"

Raf really didn't get a verbal answer from Jack, but instead he and Miko were greeted by a large flash of light instead. When the light subsided, Jack was once again inside a bright blue dome with a mysterious girl and of course, Karas was kneeling just a few feet away, steam coming off his armor due to the sudden transformation.

Miko and Raf had their mouths hanging open for different reasons after seeing this. Raf of course was blown away from the transformation itself while also recognizing the same suit of armor that had saved him just a day before. Miko though, she was just blown away at how awesome Karas appeared.

"Awesome!" Miko shouted, unknowingly gaining the attention of a nearby government official.

What Raf had to say was a bit more...confused, "W-what...?"

Letting loose a small chuckle, Karas turned to the young boy and waved a finger at him. _"Hold that thought, I'll be right back."_

With the twisting portal before him, Karas took off in a sprint towards the ground bridge. Before he could make it through it however, another blue portal appeared in front of him. The armored figure eagerly jumped through the portal and appeared on the other side in a completely new form.

Instead of a motorcycle or suit of armor, a strange looking aircraft shot out of the portal and flew at neck breaking speed towards the ground bridge.

Ratchet, who had been quietly waiting for his teammates to return, looked in confusion when he saw the small craft fly through his ground bridge. Following the trail of smoke, Ratchet soon came upon the strange sight of the three human children...or as it was now, four human children. The medic was about voice his confusion (And annoyance)...but someone beat him too it.

"What in Jefferson's trousers is going on here?!"

"Scrap."

_Meanwhile, The Decepticon Mine:_

A Ground Bridge. When facing a monster that was currently on a Dark Energon bender, such a thing was a sight to behold.

Well, at least that's how Team Prime were thinking.

Shortly after contacting Ratchet, Arcee and the others were relieved to see the green portal open behind them. But still, while their escape route was certain, there was still a major problem that had to be taken care of. That being the fact that the giant, metallic snake-like creature still had Optimus in its clutches.

All the Autobots imminently blasted the creature the moment they saw the monster grab the creature, but like with the Decepticons their blaster fire did very little damage to the gigantic creature. Hell, it didn't look like it was paying attention to them. All it was focusing on at the moment was ripping the Prime in half.

Too bad Optimus was much tougher then he looks (and that is saying a lot considering how he looks).

Despite having one of his arms being stuck between the monster's teeth, the Prime was not willing to just sit around and let this creature devour him. Using one of his swords, the Autobot attempted to pry the creature's mouth open but unfortunately found that even his impressive strength wasn't enough to force this creature's jaws to part.

With his main strategy out of the way and the fact that his blasters were quite useless as well, Optimus started to consider other...drastic measures.

Cutting his own arm off so like a starving Coyote being one of them. Sure it was quite drastic, but it was either that or getting completely eaten by this monstrosity. The Prime was more then willing to make the sacrifice despite how painful it would be.

But before these measure could be brought into action, Optimus suddenly felt the pressure around his arm vanish. Looking up at his limb the Prime was surprised to see the creature's jaws moving in a way that..._they really shouldn't be_. In fact, the the monster's jaws didn't even seem to be connected to the rest of its head anymore...almost as if they had been...cut in half?

**_-Slick-_**

That proved to be correct, as less then a second later both of the monster's jaws split down the middle, freeing the Prime while also causing a extreme amount of pain to the creature itself.

Now free from the Mikura's grasp, Optimus kicked the creature straight in the face and jumped away.

Landing near his team's location, the large Autobot looked upward towards the creature. Despite anything his team or the Decepticons had done to it, something had somehow wounded this creature to a extreme degree in such a short time.

While inspecting the Mikura's wounds however, Optimus did spot something in the distance. Scaling the Nemesis's transport tube was a strange aircraft, one only about the size of Arcee's alternate from and flying at a speed that didn't seem physically possible. Its design seemed influenced by a crow or a raven, a creature native to Earth itself

Swinging around the massive warship, the strange aircraft made a beeline run towards the massive serpent. The Mikura in turn roared in retaliation and proceeded to launch more then a dozen of those energy blasts at the incoming jet. Using its sleek design and incredible speed the jet weaved past the monster's explosive attacks as it inched ever closer to the Cavern. But as one of the projectiles nearly nicked the jet, the aircraft itself abandoned any advanced maneuvers and just barreled directly towards the monster.

Nearing the roof entrance to the cavern (aka: The giant hole in the ceiling), a blue portal appeared directly in the jet's path. Not attempting to avoid the strange portal, the Jet shot into it and Karas came out the other side, his sword drawn and heading directly towards the massive Mikura, his speed the same as it was in his jet form.

_"Ha!"_ Moving at such a speed, the armored warrior easily cut through the Mikura's metallic flesh. With a single swipe, the monster that had slaughtered more then its share of Decepticons was missing its head, the large frame slamming into the cavern's floor.

Still moving at such a impressive speed, Karas also landed with a small aftershock following him. But at least for him, Karas wasn't missing a vital part of his body.

Brushing the dirt from his armor, Karas looked over and saw the surprised looks of the Autbots, who had still not ran through the ground bridge due to their surprise at the warrior's sudden appearance. With his gaze settling on the Autobot's leader, Karas took notice of the Prime's fairly dented arm. Sure it was superficial, but not even one such as Optimus could get that close to a Dark Energon infused Mikura and not walk away with at least a scratch.

_"You okay?" _Karas called over to the Prime, who just looked at his arm and flexed his fist.

"I'm unharmed," The Prime said in return, "Thank you for the assistance."

Karas shrugged, "_Its nothing, I was more then happy to-"_

Their conversation was cut off unfortunately when the loud sound of screeching metal and fluid's dripping caught both individual's attentions.

It appears that the Mikura...wasn't quite dead yet.

Somehow despite the loss of its head, the massive serpent's body continued to function. With more and more Dark Energion infused blood flowing from the creature's headless body, the monster started to convulse, what could be considered its 'neck' twisting and shaking the most out of its large form. And then when things couldn't get any stranger...the monster's 'neck' split open, showering the cavern with blood.

Now with a new head, one that seemed closer to the idea of a crab's claw (although with the additions of a large purple eye in the center and very large and sharp teeth on each side), the Mikura seemed to glare at his would-be beheader.

_"Well...that's new."_

Its true. Taking a Mikura's head is normally a sure way to kill these monsters. Sure, there were the obvious exceptions (like when they had more then one head), but transforming a section of their body into a new head? That is certainly new...maybe it had to do with that Dark Energon stuff?

Still, Karas had little time to think about this development. The Mikura wasted no time in trying to devour Karas, the massive creature lunging at the armored warrior, both of its horizontal jaws wide in anticipation for the kill.

Rolling forward to avoid the monster's mouth, Karas watched as the monster crashed into the ground, its mouth tearing a sizable chunk of rubble out of the Cavern's floor. Dirt and rocks filling its mouth, the Mikura quickly spat out the earthly material and tried to eat Karas once more. This went on for more then a few times, with the beast lunging forward in a attempt to devour its prey while Karas either jumped or rolled out of harm's way.

This repetition was broken however when Karas didn't simply stop at dodging out of the way of the Mikura's path of destruction. Taking off into a sprint, Karas make a run towards one of the Cavern's nearby walls. The Mikura followed its foe in response, the Serpent's body slithering through the Cavern in pursuit.

With the monster hot on his heels, the armored warrior lead the monster as close to the nearby wall as possible before he began to scale it. Loosing its prey briefly, the massive Mikura wasn't able to stop itself before slamming into a very thick wall. About halfway up the Cavern's surface, Karas quickly kicked away from the rocky surface and landed on the stunned creature's back.

Holding his sword in a reverse grip, Karas quickly stabbed the monster with his katana. With his sword painfully cutting into the Mikura, Karas began to run off towards the creature's dazed head, dragging his sword all the way and cutting a giant slice down the creature's frame.

The pain quickly brought the Mikura out its daze. Twisting the upper portion of its body around, the Mikura stared in rage at Karas. Its eye glowing a intense purple, the Mikura's single optic suddenly unleashed a large beam of energy at the armored figure. This energy beam started burn its way towards Karas, who quickly pulled his sword from the creature's hide and jumped away.

Landing on a platform on the upper portion of the Cavern, Karas stared down at the giant monster. Karas was actually mildly surprised when he saw that the Mikura was still blasting itself with its own attack. While it didn't look like much at first, the Mikura was in fact cauterizing its own wound.

With the fact that he hadn't done that actual damage to the monster since his arrival(having replaced its head, the whole 'decapitation' thing didn't really matter anymore), Karas was starting to get _really_ annoyed. Just wounding this creature didn't seem enough...perhaps it would be easier to deal with in pieces?

It was at this point when the Mikura had finished 'healing' its wound and turned its gaze at Karas. Unleashing another beam of intense energy, Karas had to jump off of the platform before he was vaporized like the platform itself. Falling through the Cavern, Kara's put his idea into action. Tossing his sword into the air, Karas quickly preformed a few hand-signs.

_"Bazusōdo!" _Karas called out,_ "Three way Slice!"_

Finishing these hand-signs, Kara's katana not only started to spin in mid air, but it also split into three individual blades. These blades quickly flew the air and launched themselves at the monstrous Mikura, who attempted to wipe them out with its optic beam. It's energy attack was too slow however, the spinning blades flying through the air, pasted the beam before slicing through the massive Mikura's body.

The slicing and dicing quickly resulted in the Mikura being chopped into more then three pieces, its massive body collapsing into the ground with blood spilling throughout the Cavern.

Despite having its long body being sliced into halves (along with its jaws getting carved in two as well), Karas wasn't willing to risk the idea that this thing just **wasn't quite **dead yet.

Turns out that this _was_ the case, the Mikura's head was still alive somehow...although heavily wounded.

Karas quickly landed near the monster's disembodied head and ran towards the monster's large, purple eye. With the monster currently too weak to fight back, Karas easily drew his sword and transformed it into its advanced from. Gripping the blade with both hands, Karas lifted his sword over his head head before delivering a devastating slice to the Mikura's optic.

The resulting attack split the giant monster's head in two, spraying Dark Energon infused blood all over the Cavern and Karas himself.

_"Sick."_ Karas muttered. Keeping his guard up, Karas waited for a moment to see if the Mikura was truly dead this time. It took a few seconds but Karas was relieved to see the giant Mikura's body dissolving like they normally do after they dies, the giant mechanical parts melting away and leaving very little blood as a reminder of what had been there before.

_"Okay...its dead now...everyone okay?"_

The Autobots just stared at the carnage around them and then looked at each other. Nearly all of them looked utterly dumbstruck at what had happened except for Optimus and Arcee (who had seen this all before). With the Cavern about to fall apart and the Decepticon warship still floating above them (which was preparing to blow the place into oblivion)...it was pretty good idea to get the hell out of here.

Wiping the blood from his helmet, Karas just sighed and walked towards the Autobots. With his body still back at their base, Karas had a very bad feeling that his conversation with the Autobots was about to get a whole lot more...complicated.

* * *

_UNKNOWN LOCATION:_

Far away from both the Cavern and Jasper itself laid a dark abyss, a complex filled with the creatures that could be discribed as residents of the pit itself. They were all different in many ways. Some looked human, others looked like animals, a few looked like a combination of the two while the rest looked like nothing anyone could ever describe.

In the center of the complex however was a single figure, looking off at a small opening in the ground. The figure was shrouded in complete shadow, the only thing that could be noticed was the piercing red eyes it possessed.

"What is it?"

A second figure approached, one much larger then the one with red eyes, **"What remains of Jaryū has returned."**

"Whats his status?"

The larger figure shook his head,**"There is little left of him,"** He then tossed a few pieces of metal to the ground, **"Karas did a number on him."**

The red eyed figure grunted, not impressed, "Irreverent, does he he have what we sent him out for?"

**"Yes, a small amount of the substance is still in his system."** The large figure reached behind his back and revealed a very small jar, containing a purple glowing substance, the blood of the Mikura Karas had just 'defeated'.

"Good." Taking the jar in his hands, the red-eyed figure turned and walked away, "Extract it and dispose of the rest, he is no longer of use to us in his present condition."

The second figure just shrugged, **"Right...I'll go get Rampage, I'm sure he is hungry."**

In the background a sinister chuckle could be heard. Large, thunderous footsteps followed as something approached what remained of the Mikura, now identified as Jaryū. All that was left of the giant mechanical serpent was the other half of the creature's long serpent-like body, which had a replica of its original head on the other end of its body in place of a tail.

It seems that after its body had been sliced into pieces by Karas, this half of the beast retreated with the knowledge that if it had stayed...death would'v come for it eventually.

The once intimidating Mikura whimpered as a monstrous figure approached it, the rush of the Dark Energon gone from its veins.

Perhaps returning here was an even bigger mistake.

* * *

**"_Yes_, whimper in _terror_...you're just making my enjoyment all the more..._satisfying_!"**

* * *

Chapter Notes:

***Bazusōdo = "Buzz Blade"**

-This comes from the moment at the start of the first Karas film, Prophecy. Its when a Karas throws his sword before preforming a few hand signs, resulting in the sword splitting in two. That move was never really seen again in the series, so I decided to give it and the act of spinning a Karas's sword in the air a technique name.

*I'm sorry if it seems like I am stalling the explanation on Karas, its just that this chapter was getting too long and I couldn't find a good way to sustain it with the explanation in there as well. Next chapter will start out with Jack explaining what the hell is going on with him, the Mikuras, and Karas.

*That name, **Rampage**...I'm sure a few of you will get where that came from.

*Just to make it clear, Karas has three forms.  
-1. Humanoid Armor form.  
-2. A black Motorcycle (This replaced the Car from the Animated movies).  
-3. A Jet form.

Please PM me with any questions you might have, plot related or otherwise.

* * *

**Mikura Archive:**

* * *

(Chapter 3).

**Jaryū (Dragon Serpent):**  
_-A massive Mikura, this monstrous creature has more then a few characteristics integrated into its form. With a Serpent-like body, this creature has a long slender form despite its size. Pushed along by dozens of small legs like a insect, this beast tends to be slow moving on its own. With a secret second head at the other end of its body, this Mikura can be a very difficult to dispose of._

**Physical Characteristics:  
_-_**_Very long body (Serpent-like), contains a very thick hide that has been shown to be be immune to blaster fire._  
_-Has two heads, one on each side of its body._  
_-Three sets of eyes on each head, two on the sides while one on the forehead._  
_-Uses tiny limbs throughout the body to move its large frame._  
**Alternate Form:**  
_-Due to its large stature, this Mikura does not process a Alt. form._

**Threat Level: 2.25  
_-_**_Thick body makes it immune to most outside firepower along with very strong physical power._  
_-Can fire an powerful energy blast from its mouth._  
_-If one section of its body is destroyed, the other half can escape from battle if necessary._

**Note: Dark Energon enhancements.**  
_*Introduction of Dark Energon into bodily system causes enhancements to nearly all basic abilities.__  
-Speed is increased along with aggression._  
_ -Adaptation to injuries. The Mikura was able to rapidly adapt itself to the any damages that it has received, even the loss of its head._  
_ -Adaptation to weaponry as well, the Mikura was also able to produce a beam of energy similar to its previous projectile after the modifications it had after the loss of its head._


	5. Chapter 4: Explainations Complications

Speech Legend:

"Human Speech/Cybertronian Speech"

**[Bumblebee Speach] -Beep Translation**

_"Spirits Speech/Communications Line/Karas Talking"_

_'Thoughts'_

**"Inhuman/Non-Cybertronian Creatures/Intense screams or yelling/Introductions"**

* * *

**Chapter 4: Explanations and Complications:**

_Mikura's forms can vary greatly when it comes to their powers and shapes._

_Some are nearly the size of a average human while others can tower over the fragile beings like giants_

_This is why Karas needs the many forms that it processes._

_For not even the sky is safe from the dark clutches of these twisted spirits._

* * *

_Team Prime's Base:_

Upon returning, everyone was put into a very...awkward situation.

Nearly every Autobot instantly saw what had become of Jack's body after he came to their rescue as Karas and with the mysterious girl standing right next to him as well, an explanation was surely needed. So after Karas rejoined with his body (causing even more confusion), Jack started to give a very _loose_ explanation of what in the heck was going on and who the girl standing next to him actually was.

Hell, he didn't even fully understand it but hey, it was the best he could do on short notice.

"Karas is basically me. My soul, what makes me...me." Jack tried to make it sound as sense-able as he could...but was having little success, "This requires me to leave my body so I can access the power to destroy such things as the creature you all just saw."

Well, it wasn't quite that simple.

Karas are born when a human is near death and knows great sorrow. When this happens, they are approached by the representation of the City's will and are transported into another spiritual realm. It is at this point that the person is given a object, one in the shape of a mythical watch that informs them of everything they need to know. The the connection between humans and spirits, the city's will, the Mikura, and Karas themselves.

That however still leaves the question...why is Jack of all people a Karas? Hmm...

Still, the Team's reactions were pretty...obvious. None of them expected a explanation like that and it all resulted in them giving the poor kid a set of_ 'Are you serious'_ looks. Jack was expecting a few of these during his explanation but that didn't help the embarrassment he Arcee gave him one of those looks and she had the most experience with this insanity.

Hell, the only ones that didn't have that look were Optimus and Miko. The later because she honestly didn't care about the explanation and the former?

"Why must you leave your body in order to access this form?" Optimus asked, earning some strange looks from his team.

Jack fidgeted for a second but ultimately it wasn't him who answered the Prime's question.

"While a human's body is weak compared to the metal shell of a Mikura, their soul is the source of their strength." The mysterious girl next to Jack said, "If their soul is strong enough, a person can be found worthy enough to become Karas and defend those who cannot defend themselves."

Optimus raised a eyebrow at the girl's words while Jack shrugged, "Yeah, pretty much what she said."

"And you are? Miss?" Optimus asked the girl. Despite the large Autobot's words, the girl remained silent.

Eyes widening, Jack turned to look at the girl next to him, "This is Yurine...she is my friend,"

Jack faked a cough and then turned away from the group, "...who happens to be a spiritual priestess that can turn me into Karas and transform herself into a cat when she needs to..."

Arcee, Raf, and Miko finally understood Jack's words from earlier. It would have been a bit difficult if this girl wasn't around then his explanation would have been fairly difficult to comprehend. Although the part about turning into a cat was still weird (When wouldn't that sound weird?).

"Indeed, I am Yurine." Bowing slightly, Yurine awaited any further questions. Getting them out of the way would make this entire confrontation go by much faster. Sure, she wasn't the most talkative of people/spirits/cats, but if it meant making this awkward situation go by faster then she was all for it.

"Question?!" Miko blurted out, "Why were you a cat?"

Yurine had no real reaction to the sudden question and just answered, "Whenever Jack must become Karas, I am needed to release the seal and call forth the power.". Yurine pointed to Jack's backpack, "But it would be inconvenient for him if I was to follow him everywhere in my current form, so I alter my appearance so I can accompany him."

A strange girl constantly following Jack around would have seemed...odd when you think about it.

"So let me get this straight..." Ratchet said, walking slowly towards Yurine.

"This human...who was a cat," Ratchet eyed the strange girl, "Can remove your 'essence' from your body, transform you into a powerful armored combatant, and using that form, you fight giant mechanical monsters that you call...Mikura."

"Yep." Jack nodded.

Ratchet groaned and started to walk away from the group, "Ugh, this is making my processor ache...". Walking back to his console, the medic tried his best to ignore any further conversations concerning the boy and his priestess friend. He had to deal with Megatron's return and his supply of Dark Energon at the moment, all of this was just too much for the old bot.

"Why are you helping us then?" Arcee asked, "You keep saying that you fight those monsters, but why help against the Cons? Why help us?"

Arcee was of course referring to the battle at the canal. There were no Mikura there but despite that Karas helped in battling the Decepticons that were chasing Arcee. If Karas was only meant to fight monsters like that, then why did he help them?

Yurine looked at Optimus, "Your war threatens not only the city, but the entire world itself." She then looked at the other Autobots, Arcee in particular, "If helping you fight this war helps protect the city and everything within it, then Karas is more then willing to lend you his power."

Agents of the city, that is what the Karas are. When the city feels threatened, the Karas are summoned to protect it.

Jasper feels not only the presence of the Mikura but also the threatening nature that the Aubotbot's and Decepticon's war will eventually lead too. The destruction, the chaos, and the death. Humanity as a whole is threatened. These Autobots fight on behave of humanity and all those that are linked to it. If helping these bots in their war will help protect the world and everyone who lives upon it, then Karas is more then willing to assist them.

Still, this was a idea that Optimus didn't quite approve of.

Humanity was already in enough danger when it came to the Decepticons and Megatron, but to allow this boy to fight the Decepticons directly? That would put him in even more danger. Despite the power he has, was it right to allow this child to fight along side them? The very idea was something that the large Autobot didn't like one bit.

"Wait!" Everyone turned to look at Agent Fowler, who looked quite angry at the situation, "So for the past few weeks, its been you!? You've been the pain in my butt that has been wrecking the town every night!?". The Agent looked quite livid, all of his anger getting directed towards the boy in question, "If you have all that power, then why in Taft's bathtub do you still wreck everything you get near!?"

It was a interesting question. With all the power that the Autobots (Arcee especially) have seen, why was there still so much destruction? Sure, when it came to the huge ones (like the one in the Cavern for example), a bit of damage was a given. But when it came to the smaller ones, why was there still a bunch of damage despite all the power Jack had as Karas?

Despite getting the full force of the man's accusations thrown at him, Jack didn't crumble beneath the agent's words. In fact, all they did do to the boy was seemingly make him angry as well. Jack looked like he was about to explode on the old man but a silent look from Yurine somehow made Jack hold back on that...for the moment.

"Here's the deal," Jack tried to be as calm as possible, "Even as Karas, I can't be everywhere at once. When a Mikura appears, I don't instantly know where it is or what it looks like. All I ever get is a feeling that there is a Mikura out there, nothing more."

Jack's voice started be get a bit strained at this point, this the conversation wasn't one that he liked when it came to his duty as Karas.

"Some Mikura can hide themselves as humans, in which I can't find them right away. I can only be sure when they reveal themselves, but by then its too late..."

Arcee got a unfortunate flashback to the women that she had come across two days ago, the one the had been violently killed by the very first Mikura that she had encountered. It wasn't pretty. Not even the worst of the Cons ever got that savage, only monsters like Insecticons were that monstrous for the most part.

Jack's eyes started to turn cold, "If I have the choice to either avoid collateral damage or actually save lives, its a fairly simple choice for me." Jack's eyes snapped at the government official.

"Sorry, but I'm going to try to save as many people as possible even if it means that I'll wreck some pavement in the process!"

Agent Fowler was surprised at the kid's rage on the subject, taking a step backward at his outburst. Quickly recovering however, the Agent returned the glare that Jack was giving him. Staring at the kid for second or two, Fowler eventually just walked away. Like Ratchet, the government agent had far too much to deal with to deal with this. Not only did he have to report to the Pentagon about the Decepticon's returning, but now he had to deal with closing the case on late night damages to Jasper.

With the amount of paperwork in front of him, the old agent cursed to himself as he closed the elevator behind him.

"**[Well, that escalated quickly.]**" Bumblebee muttered, getting a nod from Raf as well.

Jack just sighed to himself. Sitting on the nearby stairs, Jack rubbed his face in a attempt to loosen the stress he was feeling. Letting his mind drift for a moment, ignoring all the Karas, Mikura, and giant robot issues going on at the moment. All he wanted to think about was getting home and sleeping in his nice, soft be-

"!" Thinking about his bed instantly reminded Jack of the curfew he had. Reaching into his pocket and grabbing his phone, Jack groaned when he noticed that it was around five or so minutes after 10pm. He was about to call his mother and tell her that he was going to be a bit late...but that was until he saw that his phone had no reception.

"Um...Optimus?" The Prime turned towards the boy, "I don't mean to bug you...but I'm not getting a signal."

Seeing Jack's cell phone, Optimus explained.

"A security measure," The Autobot gestured towards the walls around them, "The base is shielded from all radio waves."

"Ah," Jack made another glance at his phone, "Do you happen to have a way to call my mom? If she doesn't know where I am...the cops will be out looking for me."

Optimus was a bit confused by that comment, "Have you broken some sort of law?"

The teen merely shook his head, "No, I just need to get home near 10pm." Jack sighed, "I have a curfew."

"I need to get home too," Raf said, also being reminded of his own curfew, "Or I'll be grounded for a year!"

Optimus looked away in thought, "Ah, earth customs. I hadn't considered them." The large Autobot looked between his team and the kids one more time before continuing, "But the issue of your safety still remains."

"Bulkhead, accompany Miko home if you will." The was meet with a excited scream from Miko, who was ecstatic at the idea of the giant green wrecker meeting her host parents and the freakout that would occur. Jack gave the girl as disappointed look before Optimus added something to his order.

"And maintain covert surveillance, in vehicle form."

"Curbside duty," Bulkhead nodded, "Got it."

Miko 'Aww'ed in disappointment due to that but left with the massive Autobot none the less.

Nodding, Optimus then turned to his yellow scout, "Bumblebee, you'll watch over Raf."

Bumblebee nodded and happily beeped a few times. Transparently the scout had grown to like the small human after their short time together and he was more then happy to watch over the boy. Raf was also happy with the situation as he too had grown to enjoy the scout's company.

With two out of three out of the way, Optimus then turned to Jack. He had three choices when it came to this young boy. He could either assign Cliffjumper, Arcee, or Ratchet to guard the boy. Although the Prime had a feeling that if he asked his medic, all he would get in response would be-

"Busy!"

Yep, that was expected.

Still, perhaps Arcee was the best choice? She did have the most contact with the boy. Still, before Optimus made his choice clear, Raf brought up a interesting point when it concerned how Jack was going to get himself home.

"Why don't you use your powers and get home in a instant?" Raf asked but Jack shook his head in response.

Jack glanced at Yurine, "I can't transform unless its a important situation...getting home just to avoid a curfew isn't _that _big of a issue."

With that clear, Optimus turned to the local femme. "Arcee, you'll accompany Jack."

Arcee nodded at her superior's order but sighed the moment that he turned away from her. So far, Arcee's interactions with Jack hadn't been the best in the world...so being assigned his guardian for the moment wasn't her favorite idea when it came to passing the time. Still, she could make due with it for the moment. At least things weren't going to get boring on her...that was a given after today's events.

With all three of the humans now processing a protector from any Decepticon attacks, the three Autobots quickly transformed and drove the three children and feline (Yurine had transformed back into her cat form, finding it much easier to ride in Jack's backpack during the trip back to Jasper) back to their homes.

Withe Bulkhead and Bumblebee taking both Miko and Raf home, Jack was unfortunately meet with the dissatisfied greeting from his mother the moment Arcee had got him home. Of sure, she was upset due to him being late due to his curfew but what really made her upset was the implication that Jack had bought a motorcycle. By a stroke of luck however, Jack was eventually able to calm his mother down and lead her inside.

After getting his overtaxed mother to go lay down for the night, Jack gave a brief 'good night' to Arcee (who then entered recharge for the rest of the night) before walking back to his own room. Closing the door behind him, Jack allowed Yurine to jump out of his backpack before tossing it to the side.

Taking a moment to look around, Jack made sure that there weren't anymore distractions or surprises that was going to interrupt him. Seeing none, Jack calmly got into bed and drifted off.

"Meow."

Or, at least he tried too. Shaking his head, the teen reluctantly looked over to his side and saw a familiar white feline. Said cat was sitting next to the boy's window and was looking out into the street. It didn't take a thousand year old alien robot or spiritual entity to figure out what she was up to.

"Meow."

Releasing a annoyed sigh, Jack allowed a familiar light to engulf him. But that doesn't mean that he didn't mutter something about 'Stupid metal bogeymen' not letting him get 'one peaceful night sleep in the last week or so' while he transformed. It was kind of hard to understand due to the sound of armor suddenly appearing in the room but honestly...Jack really didn't care at this point.

It was going to be a long night.

_The Next Day, Darby Residence: _

Waking up...well, it wasn't a great experience for Jack on this fateful day.

After spending nearly all night chasing down _one _Mikura (It was incredibly fast and annoying to kill, so it took nearly three times as long to catch, let alone kill), Jack only got around two hours of actual asleep before he was awoken by his alarm clock...on a Saturday of all days. Having forgotten to turn it off, Jack threw the stupid device across the room in his annoyance.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep now, Jack slowly made his way to the kitchen. Maybe something there could soothe the growing headache the boy had?

Oh sure, Jack didn't get tired physically when he was Karas...but he was technically still up all night. It put a strain on his mind and made him just a bit cranky. Going nearly all night without sleep have given him one hell of a headache once he woke up.

After grabbing some coffee (his mother must have made some before she left), Jack made a trip to check on his Autobot guest. Entering the garage, Jack instantly saw a familiar looking motorcycle. Said motorcycle quickly transformed the moment Jack came into view. Getting a good look at the boy, Arcee couldn't help but frown.

"You look terrible."

Jack let loose a small shrugged, "There was a Mikura last night, I didn't get back until about two hours ago."

Arcee eyed Jack after that comment, "So it was you who made all that noise last night..."

Cringing, Jack looked away. The battle with the Mikura last night had caused a bit of damage to the landscape. No one was hurt mind you, but it was fairly noisy and the damages would cost a pretty penny to repair. Hopefully Jack wouldn't see Fowler today...that guy was surely going to be a bit upset about all of that.

"Anyway," Arcee said, "We better get going."

"Get going? Go wher-" Jack was confused for a second," Ah, right...just give me a minute."

Now it was Arcee's turn to look confused, "What for?"

Not bothering to turn around, Jack just waved back at the Autobot.

"I'm not going to the base in my pajamas...and besides," Jack shouted from his room, "I'd rather not deal with my mom freaking out again so I'm leaving a note."

Arcee nodded, "Good idea."

After a few minutes, Jack emerged from the house once more. Now in some more casual atire and his backpack, the young boy and Autobot made their way back to the base.

Despite the crappy start to the day, Jack was actually feeling a bit optimistic while they drove back to the base. No school, no work for today...and after yesterday's chaos Saturday sounded like a nice day to just sit around and relax. Unless luck decided to screw with him that is...

_UNKNOWN LOCATION:_

Running towards the red eyed figure was a small Mikura. It had the body stature of a human crossed with chameleon. Scales covered the creature's body that helped camouflaging it while also acting as light type of body armor. Under its arms were also two folded up mechanical wings, bot set to deploy like a flying squirrel for high speed movement.

Wearing what looks like a expressionless mask upon its face, the small scout bowed to the figure before him.

**"Speak."** The scout shuttered for a second but managed to get its message out.

"Their leader has left to a unknown section of the planet, leaving his ship in the command of his followers." The scout informed the figure, who nodded at the news.

Indeed, while spying on the Decepticon's ship, the scout had spotted Megatron's massive form flying away from the base. Whatever he was doing was of no concern however, the important thing was that he was gone for the time being.

**"Good,"** A large opening started to open up in the ceiling,**"Then its time to claim what is truly ours."**

Loud footsteps could be heard behind the red eyed figure at this point. Turning around, the two figures spotted another massive form was standing behind him, hunched over due to its massive height and with something wrapped around its body like a coat or something. This creature had yellow piercing eyes and was staring at the figure in front of him, awaiting a single command.

**"Go."**

The massive creature nodded before looking towards the sky. The sound of something unfolding could before a sudden rush of air filled the air. In a second, the hue creature was gone from the chamber, only the sound of wings flapping in the distance could be heard.

_The Autobot Base, around the same time:_

Upon arriving back at the Autobot's base, Jack could already feel his headache disappearing. Oh sure, the day had started off a bit nasty with his headache and grouchy mood, but the drive here had definitely put the boy in better spirits and he had his newly appointed guardian to thank for that. A nice long drive was just what he needed to clear his head.

Too bad that his good mood was dampened imminently after they arrived at the base however.

Right after he and Arcee arrived along with the others, Optimus informed the team that he and Ratchet would be going on a important mission concerning Megaton's use of Dark Energon. After seeing what the stuff could do, Optimus was concerned about what Megatron could do if he found a source of bodies that he could reanimate with the dark substance.

After hearing that Ratchet was going with the Prime, Arcee couldn't help but make a comment about the medic's age. Ratchet didn't take to kindly to that however.

"I'll have you know that while my pistons are rusty, my hearing is still working just fine!"

Fuming, Ratchet quickly generated a Ground-Bridge and disappeared along with Optimus. Before leaving however, Optimus left Arcee in charge of the base while he was gone. Arcee was of course against the idea, but she didn't have the chance to object to it.

"Come on Cee," Cliffjumper patted the femme on the shoulder, "Its not that bad, we can go to the training room if you want..."

Despite her annoyed mood, Arcee just shrugged and walked off towards the base's training room. Cliffjumper followed her but wasn't looking too happy about it. Oh, Cliffjumper was going to get the crap beaten out of him for this...but hey, better have a content temporary leader then have a pissed off one.

After telling Bulkhead to inform her if anything vastly important happened, Arcee and Cliff walked off towards the training room. This left the rest of the group to occupy themselves with their own devices.

Miko had brought her guitar along with her and was quickly setting up the musical instrument while Bulkhead watched. Raf and Bumblebee were watching videos on his laptop, which got surprising good reception despite being inside a giant silo. And Jack? Well, he joined Raf and Bee as he didn't have much to do anyway. Yurine was there as well (in her cat form) but all she did was sit on Jack's lap during the entire exchange.

Things actually went by rather pleasantly for a while, everyone was actually enjoying themselves (ignoring Miko's ear-shattering music that is). Too bad that couldn't last however.

**_"BING!"_ **The bases alarms suddenly filled the base, causing nearly everyone to groan in annoyance (The bots because they knew who it was and the kids because the sound was loud, annoying, and interrupting their fun). Turning their gaze towards the elevator, Team Prime watched as Agent Fowler walked into the command center.

"Oh fantastic..." Bulkhead groaned, "Its Fowler again..."

Instead of screaming for Optimus however, Agent Fowler instead just remained quiet and walked towards Raf and Jack. The Agent stopped right in front of Jack and lifted a sheet of papers in front of his face.

"Kid, we have to talk." Jack gave the agent a questionable look.

"What about?" Flipping through the packet of paper,s Fowler quickly pulled one out and showed it to Jack. It took a few seconds to skim through the report but Jack clearly got what it was about. It was about the destruction he caused as Karas...which was something Jack had explained to him the previous day.

"Didn't we already have this conversation ya know...yesterday?"

Fowler glared at the boy, "Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that you _BLEW UP A ENTIRE BUILDING LAST NIGHT!_"

Jack cringed, that did happen didn't it? The Mikura had blown up an entire building once Karas had dealt the creature a extensive wound...Hey! It wasn't his fault that the Mikura self-destructed after crashing into said building. During the chase, Jack had cut the Mikura's legs off and caused the high speeding Mikura to slide into a nearby building...and exploded. And not just a small explosion, oh no...it was the size of mini van going nuclear inside the small store.

They normally just decompose and vanish, not exploding into a giant fireball of death!

"I can understand your perspective kid, I really can..." Fowler said, "But seriously?! You nuked a entire building! One that took one hell of explanation for why it suddenly went up in flames in a split second!"

Jack understood his frustration when said it like that. Whenever he fights Mikuras, Jack never considered the explanations that had to come into play when it concerned the damages he caused during the battle. Still, before Jack had a chance to defend himself Bulkhead felt that it was time for him to put his two cents into the subject.

"Come on Fowler, give the kid a break." Wrecker shrugged, "You didn't see what those things can do, some things getting blown up is unavoidable sometimes."

Fowler instantly turned his harden glare on the massive cybertronian, "And you are one to talk Mr. 'Wrecker'?"

"Excuse me?" Bulkhead instantly didn't like the tone Fowler was using with him.

"You bots have been busting up things long before this kid came along, so I don't think you having any right to tell me to 'calm down'!"

Bulkhead responded with smashing his hand down on one of Ratchet's tools (luckily the medic wasn't there to complain about it for once). The Autobot and government agent instantly got in a shouting match, both sides arguing for their side in this struggle. It looked like it could have gotten ugly but luckily all that had ended up happening was Fowler storming out in a rage.

Bulkhead assured them that everyone would be fine but deep in his mind Jack had a very bad feeling.

Still, everything returned to normal for the time being. Miko once again started to play her guitar while Jack, Raf and Bee returned to watching internet videos (apparently Raf had found some type of show called _**Garo**, _which Jack couldn't help but feel something familiar about the strange show...). It was fairly peaceful...until the group heard a sudden beeping coming from Ratchet's console. Concerned that it may be Optimus calling in, Bulkhead rushed over to the console and checked the signal.

Turns out that it was a earth based distress signal...

It was from Fowler...something had happened.

_On Route to the Nemesis:_

After departing from the Autobot's base, Fowler had suddenly found himself under attack by Soundwave's pet, Laserbeak. Armed with a Helicopter with a high powered machine gun, the Agent of the United States bravely engaged the Con in high speed combat. The battle was long and hard but despite getting a few good shots in, Fowler was soon captured by the Con and was now on the way back to their base in the sky.

Fortunately Fowler had been able to active a distress beacon before his capture but it was impossible to say when that was going to arrive. And seeing how he was hundreds up in mid air...trying to escape the Decepticon wasn't a very good idea in his present condition.

_'What I would give for a grenade right now...and a parachute.'_

Unfortunately, Fowler had neither of these items. All the man could do was wait for his eventual arrival at the Decepticon's warship. They were more then likely waiting for him, so Fowler expected nothing less then a warm welcome...

Wait...what was that?

While deep in his thoughts, Fowler could have sworn that he saw a large shadow suddenly fly over his head. While it was much too quick for him, the Agent could have sworn that he saw wings of some kind...

Apparently Laserbeak had noticed this as well, the drone slowly coming to a stop before hovering in the air.

Keeping its blaster ready, Laserbeak slowly looked over the area. Being hundreds of feet in the air, the drone knew whatever had passed over them had to be around somewhere.

Still, neither human or drone noticed the shadow flying above them...

...until it was too late.

* * *

**Author's notes:**

-So yeah, pretty short Chapter when all things considered. I just wanted to get the basic Karas explanation out of the way. Although Jack's reason for being a Karas still needs to be explained but that won't happen for a good while yet.

-Not much action in this chapter either but trust me, that will be rectified in the next chapter...and it won't be a quick win for Karas either.

-Arcee isn't as grumpy during all of this for one simple reason...Cliffjumper never died. She was fairly angry for those episodes due to that event and with Cliff still around, she is in a slightly better mood. Sure, she still doesn't like baby sitting the teens but she wasn't mad enough to just say screw being in charge and go scouting with Bee.

-As for the new thread I introduced in this chapter. I'm basing the character on a notable video game villain, so I'd like to have anyone who reads this try and guess who its based off. I know that you don't know much about it at this point, but I'll give you a hint for now. Considering how a Mikura is like physically and what it has done so far (mostly flying but still)...the Mikura's origin influence is from a series that the word _**'Prime'**_ is a major part of...

-_**Garo**_ is Japanese action series that is very similar to Karas in more then one way...so after** UTHEMAN** introduced me to that series, I couldn't help but make a reference to it.

Same as before people, have any questions? Leave it in a review or just PM me. I'll do my best to answer any confusions.


	6. Chapter 5: Beastful Assault

Speech Legend:

"Human Speech/Cybertronian Speech"

**[Bumblebee Speach] -Beep Translation**

_"Spirits Speech/Communications Line/Karas Talking"_

_'Thoughts'_

**"Inhuman/Non-Cybertronian Creatures/Intense screams or yelling/Introductions"**

* * *

**Chapter 5: Beastful Assault.**

_Crows are not the only thing that fly through the air, waiting for their prey. _

_Carnage is the best friend of the beast._

_And the beast, despite how savage...should never be underestimated._

* * *

_The Nemesis:_

"There is still no sign of Laserbeak commander Starscream."

Starscream, the second in command of the Deceptiocns growled in annoyance. Things just weren't going his way recently were they?

First the Energon stash that he had discovered was blown up by one of those blasted Autobots (who was also able to escape from the scene as well), then Megatron himself returned and retook command of **_his _**army, and now this!?

Not long ago, the ship's communication's expert had been able to pick up a lone human signal in the middle of nowhere. After listening to it for some time, the Cons had discovered that this pathetic little bag of flesh may in fact process some valuable information.

Shortly after pinpointing the human's radio signal, Megatron's second in command had sent out Soundwave's pet Laserbeak to go fetch the human. The Decepticon should have been more then able to handle such a pathetic threat, but worrying about the drone's safety wasn't what was annoying Starscream.

Oh no. It was how long it was taking the blasted drone to get back to the ship! How long does it take a drone with speed capabilities such as it being taking this long!?

"Agh!" The seeker smashed his hands onto a nearby console, "Soundwave! What is taking that blasted pet of yours!?"

Soundwave just stared at the Decepticon for a few seconds before turning his attention back to his work. Soundwave was never a talkative bot and at this very moment Starscream just hated it. Resisting the urge to smash another console, Starscream just pulled up what the human's called the 'internet'. Perhaps something there could entertain him until that blasted drone arriv-

"Commander Starscream!" A Vehicon called. Starscream growled, resisting the urge to roar at the Drone to call him 'Lord', "Something is approaching the hanger sir, and it has one of your signals."

The seeker grinned, finally he was getting some results. Turning to the drone, Starscream ordered him to prepare for their prisoner. Putting one hell of a smug face, Starscream looked at Soundwave.

"It seems that your pet has finally arrived" Soundwave said nothing as usual, "About time for such a-"

"C-Commander!"

Starscream twitched for a brief second before roaring at the Vehicon responsible fro interrupting him. "What is _**it!?**_"

The Vehicon took a step back in fear...but it wasn't for Starscream.

"Sir, there is something going down in the hanger...you may want to check this out."

Starscream raised the cybertronian equivalent of a eyebrow and marched over to the Vehicon. Once there, the seeker watched as the Vehicon tried to pull up something on whatever was happening below.

"All inward cameras are offline at the moment, but we do have access to audio communications sir."

That goet both Starscream's and Soundwave's attention. Why were the cameras offline? They weren't scheduled for maintenance and how were all of them offline at the same time? There were at least a dozen of them inside the hanger. Still, that did not make Starscream worry...yet.

"Then play them!" Starscream yelled at the Vehicon, who imminently brought up the recordings.

* * *

**_Recording, two minutes ago._**

_Drone78- "Does anyone know where Steve went?"_

_Drone294- "Nope, I haven't seen him in a cycle or two. Whats it to you?"_

_Drone78- "He owes me a ration of Energon, do you know anyone that may know where he is?"_

_Drone294- "None, last time I saw him was when Starscream sent him to go down to that blown up Energon stash...he was always too much of a aft kisser for his own good."_

_Drone78- "Seriously? I heard the two bots that were went down there got Scraped!"_

_Drone294- "Sucks for you then."_

_Drone78- "Slag off!"_

* * *

The sound of metal grinding filled the auto file. The three Decepticons listening could clearly tell that it was the hanger bay doors opening.

* * *

_Drone78- "Ah!...why in Primus is that thing so loud?"  
_

_Drone294- "Its a giant metal door, what did you expect?"_

_Dronw78- "Whatever...slag my processor, who is due back anyway?"_

_Drone294- "No idea, is there anyone out scouting or something?"_

_Drone78- "None, Lord Megatron called everyone back for some reason."_

_Drone294- "Whatever, lets just see who had the nerve to..."_

_Drone78- "...what in Primus is that?..."_

* * *

A devastating roar came bursting through the auto file. It was so loud that it made the Vehicon, Starscream, and even Soundwave cover their autorecepters due to the pain. Once it had died down however, the three once again focused on the recordings.

It didn't sound good.

* * *

_Drone78- "-ove! Call for support!"_

_Drone294- "I did! But they won't be her for 90 sec-AGH!"_

_Drone78- "Slag!"_

_Drone294- "No! nonononopleasefortheloveofUnicron! Please don-!"_

* * *

The sound of blasters and screaming could be heard. Apparently, whatever was in there with the Cons had grabbed one of them and was slowly crushing the life out of it. The Con screamed for its life as the sound of ripping metal increased but there was no response from whatever was doing this to it.

The blaster fire was likely coming from the other Con but with no visuals it was hard to make out.

The Con's screaming was halted however when a loud 'Crunch' could be heard.

* * *

_Drone294- **CONNECTION TERMINATED**_

_Drone78- "Oh Pit!"  
_

_Drone78- "Agh! Let Go! You-"_

* * *

Blaster fire continued to sound as whatever was in there tossed the remains of one of the Cons to the ground. The remaining Con tried to defend itself but was soon in the mysterious creature's grasp as well. As the sound of more and more metal being torn apart was made clear, the Decepticon made one final sentence to its foe.

* * *

_Drone78- "Ugh...wha-what are you?"_

_Drone78-** CONNECTION TERMINATED**_

* * *

And that was it. All the rest of the audio was just the sound of thunderous footsteps throughout the hanger. By the time any reinforcements had arrived, the creature had already moved into the warship's halls. Still, this proved a grave issue in Starscream's opinion.

They had a foreign threat loose on board the ship...and he was in charge! Megatron would undoubtedly blame him for this mess and punish him outright!

Having experienced Megatron's 'punishment's first hand before...Starscream had no intention of going though any of that ever again. So to make sure of that, Starscream had to make this problem disappear, and quickly!

"Notify all troops to search and destroy whatever has invaded my-" Starscream caught himself," "-the ship, and _**BRING ME**_ its disembodied head!"

The trooper quickly nodded and began its task while Starscream just fumed. Soundwave however began to ponder this situation.

How did this thing get on board the ship? It needed a Decepticon signal in order to get past the defenses...and where was Laserbeak? Even Soundwave couldn't get into contact with one of his personal allies. Were these two situations connected? And if they were...then what was this creature's target then?

_Meanwhile, Team Prime:_

_**[**"I need imminent support! Do you copy?! I need support pronto! **-Crash-** Aw Cra-"**]**_

Bulkhead just shoot his head as the message ended, it was just going to be one of those days wasn't it?

Right after the Wrecker determined that it was in fact from their local government agent, the large Autobot quickly called in the remaining members of Team Prime. After all of them had gathered in the command center, the group had listened intently to Fowler's distress signal and in the end...it wasn't sounding too good.

Turns out that the Agent had been kidnapped by a strange flying Decepticon drone which was imminently recognized as Laserbeak, Soundwave's favorite pet.

Team reaction to the situation was split down the middle unfortunately however. Bulkhead and in some respect Cliffjumper just didn't want to help. The former was still quite annoyed at the Agent after the earlier screaming match and Cliffjumper? He just didn't like Fowler, too uptight in his opinion.

Arcee and Bumblebee on the other hand were all for rescuing Fowler. Neither of them were willing to let the man just sit there in the Decepticon's clutches, not after their previous experiences.

Still, it seemed like a split down the middle situation for the Autobots. Or at least it was until the kids brought up a very important point concerning Fowler.

"Doesn't he know where you guys live?" Miko pointed out, causing the bots to look over at the children.

Jack nodded, "Yeah...what happens if they get Fowler to talk? The Cons would know exactly where to find us."

Bulkhead instantly smacked himself in the face due to that while Cliffjumper just let loose a disappointed sigh. Neither one of them wanted to admit it...but the kids were right. If they didn't do something soon, then the Con's were likely going to make Fowler spill the beans...

Reluctantly agreeing, the four Autobots instantly got working on a plan to save their grumpy government Agent.

With the various bits of equipment and Raf (who had proven to be quite handy when it came to computers), the team had found a way to locate Fowler. Hacking his way into a government database, Raf discovered that Agents like Fowler had a tracer on himself somewhere (no one tried to guess where for their sanity's sake).

Using that tracer, the team pinpointed Fowler's position and were preparing to ground bridge there in a attempt to board the Nemesis and save their grouchy government agent.

Despite being a very serious situation for everyone involved, Jack couldn't help but feel a bit reveled when it came down to it. Sure, Fowler was definitely in trouble and the Autobots could be in major danger if nothing was done...but you know what? No Mikura! From Fowler's message, he had been attacked by a strange Decepticon called Laserbeak and not a Mikura! At least with the Cons it was less likely that Fowler would be torn apart and drained of his blood, and that was the best he could have hoped for if a Mikura had gotten him. They could do much worse when they are hungry.

While Jack wanted to help anyway he could, he doubted that Yurine would allow him to use his power to save one human while the Autobots were already on the case...right?

"Jack," Looking to his side, Jack noticed Yurine was standing next to him and had taken her human form.

The white haired priestess stared at the sealing as she spoke, "I feel a dark presence on that ship," She then stared at Jack, "It would be wise if you went with them on this mission, just in case."

"..."

Could she read him mind? Seriously! Could she?! Jack had no idea, there were still plenty of mystery surrounding this girl...even for him. But he was seriously starting to question it.

"If you are thinking about whether or not I can read your mind," Yurine suddenly said, "I don't think now is the time for such a conversation."

Staring at her for a few seconds, Jack just sighed and started to walk towards the Autobots. It wasn't worth asking about if she was just screwing with him or not...it just wasn't.

Approaching the team, Jack just casually walked up to the nearest one of the Autobots and grabbed their attention,"Hey, any chance of you guys letting me help? I'm sure I could provide some assistance if you need it."

Turns out that the bot he had gotten to notice him was the team's wrecker, "Sorry kid but no can do," Bulkhead said, "Prime wouldn't want us putting you in any danger when it comes to the Cons."

Jack frowned but really, he expected a response like this. The team was about protecting the humans after-all. So letting one of your charges run around the enemy base, incredible powers or not, did not seem like a good idea. Still, Jack was hoping that some of the team would let him help. After Yurine had actually told Jack to go along with them it wasn't like he could just say no.

"Why not let the kid help? We've seen him kick more then enough aft to prove himself." Cliffjumper added in his two cents. After being the lone witness to what Jack could do as Karas, Cliff was more then willing to let the kid help. Anyone who could freak Cons out like this could could was alright in his book.

Bulkhead still looked a bit unsure so Cliff had another idea for him, "Okay, how about just letting the kid run support?"

"What do you mean?" Bulkhead asked, the other team looking on as well.

"I mean a smash and grab." Cliff smashed his fists together, "We blast our way through the ship, slagging any Cons that get in our way until we get to Fowler."

"Then the moment we find him, Jack here grabs him and and quickly makes a exit. That way, we can get Fowler out as fast as possible while making sure that hes is less likely to get even more hurt while we make our own exit." Considering that they were talking about a huge ship full of Decepticons, getting Fowler out as fast as possible did seem like a good idea.

Seeing the Cliff's point, Bulkhead just shook his head and walked over towards the console, "Fine...just don't tell Prime about this..."

Jack quickly nodded and made his way over to Yurine. Wasting no time, the priestess quickly transformed Jack into Karas and carefully laying the boy's physical body on the ground. Due to there being no dangers in the imminent area Yurine had not bothered with generating a force field around Jack's body this time. Bumblebee gently picked Jack's body up after that and placed it on the nearby couch (they were still wondering about where he had gotten that in only one day...).

Quickly generating a ground bridge, Bulkhead quickly transformed and lead Arcee, Cliffjumper, and Karas (who was in his motorcycle form) towards the Nemesis's location while Bumblebee stayed back with Miko and Raf in case someone needed to bridge back to base.

_Minutes later, the Nemesis:_

Getting on board the Decepticon flagship, the Nemesis...wasn't as difficult as Jack had believed it would be.

Jack was expecting massive guns being shot at them as the team tried to find a way inside. Hordes of Decepticons flying out of the ship and engaging them in land and air combat. Hell, he was expecting some of the Con's higher ups to make a appearance. But instead? They had made it inside fairly easily, all it required was scaling a nearby pile of rocks and taking out a guard or two...thats it.

One might say...Jack was a bit disappointed.

Making their inside the ships hanger however, Jack could say that any disappointment that he had quickly left him...only to be replaced with disgust.

The hanger was covered in the remains of Decepticons, each having suffered a worse fate then the last.

There were bodies everywhere. Some of them looked like they were beaten to death (with giant dents throughout their armored bodies) while others were torn apart, their organs and vital parts laying beside their disemboweled frames. Hell, a few of them even looked like they were burned to death...but by what? The bots instantly began to search the hanger for any sign of...whatever had done this.

Maybe this had to do with whatever Yurine had been feeling?

"Who had a party in here?" Cliffjumper wondered aloud, kicking one of the roasted Cons for good measure.

Arcee shook her head, making sure she didn't step on any of the bodies, "Not a clue..." Arcee then looked at Bulkhead, "Find anything?"

The large Wrecker said nothing. For someone who was more then willing to beat the scrap out more then his fair share of Decepticons, even Bulkhead was disgusted by what he saw. Oh sure, his specialty was wrecking things...but this was just savage.

Along with the bots, Karas also took his time in searching the Energon soaked hanger. Getting around the corpses were far easier for Karas due to his size but it didn't help calm the boy's nerves. Despite not being fully in depth with how the average Cybertonian functioned, Karas could easily tell how gruesome this must have seemed to the bots.

Still, while looking around the bodies Karas noticed something among the pools of Energon. Walking towards it, Karas quickly took a knee and examined the strange substance. On appearance, it looked red and thick. Actually touching it however, Karas made a alarming discovery.

It was blood...human blood, meaning...

It was Fowler's.

_"Guys? We may want to get a move on,"_ Karas quickly called out to the others,_ "Theres some blood here. Not much, but its human."_

The bots quickly made their way over to Karas and looked at the substance staining his hand. They apparently came to the same conclusion as Karas had as the three quickly grimaced once they saw the blood. Luckily there wasn't that much of it, only a few drops or so. Still, unless the Cons had been capturing other humans for some strange reason, then there was without a doubt that this was from Agent Fowler.

"Scrap! Thats not a good sign." Cliffjumper cursed.

Arcee and Bulkhead looked on with grim expressions upon their faces. Blood was never a good sign and with all this gruesome carnage around them...it didn't look too good for Fowler.

Quickly flicking the blood off his fingers, Karas quickly turned to the group and made a motion to the large doors at the other side of the hanger. "Lets move."

The bots quickly nodded and made their way out of the hanger, leaving the gruesome graveyard of Decepticons behind in their wake.

Running through the halls of the Nemesis, the team started to notice something. Despite being a massive warship, the team had yet to run into any major groups of Decepticons. Sure, they had run into one or two in the last few minutes but other then that, there had been nearly no Cons so far. It was quite odd. The Autobots could guess about the size of Megatron's army and despite the slaughter from earlier...they should have been swarmed by Cons by now. So, what gives?

Well, it turns out that the bots wouldn't have to wait that much longer actually. Turning a nearby corner, the bots suddenly came face to face with a entire squad of Vehicons, with Soundwave of all bots leading them. The two groups instantly brought up their guns but re-framed from firing...for the moment.

"Hey Sounds, been awhile since I last saw you!" Cliffjumper gave a mocking wave over to the Deceptiocn's Communication expert, " Now...if you would just give us back our little friend and we'll leave...with most of you intact."

Considering that damages that the Cons had already received today, Cliffjumper was hoping that Soundwave would be more...open to simply letting them leave with their little human buddy with as little conflict as possible.

A nearby Vehicon just looked confused and gave the others a strange look before turning back to the Autobots.

"Friend? You friends with that thing!? And you call us the monsters!?" The Vehicon growled at the Autobots, the others agreeing with it all the while.

Cliffjumper gave Arcee and Bulkhead his own questioning look at that question, "Hey now, I know Fowler can be a pain in the aft, but hes not that bad..."

"Fowler? Who in the pit is Fowler? I was talking about that gian-"

**_-Boom!-_**

Before the Vehicon could even finish its sentence a massive explosion rocked the hall that the Cybertrionans were currently residing in. Smoke and debris filled the hall as a massive hole was suddenly made in between the two teams. Both Autobot and Decepticon instantly focused their weapons on the hole, unsure of what had caused it.

With smoke still erupted from the massive hole, none of the Cybertrionans were able to get at good look at what had made the hole in the first place. But while waiting for the smoke to clear, the two teams were able to notice something awkwardly roll out of the hole and settling in between the two groups. It looked like a slab of crushed metal, bits and pieces of it were torn and bent in the wrong direction. Out of all the Autobots and Decepticons only one of them had even the slightest idea of what the slab of metal actually was.

Steeping forward, Soundwave briefly touched the broken pile of scrap...and turned towards the gaping hole in the way, aggression imitating from his movements.

Thunderous foots steps echoed throughout the halls of the ship and whatever had created the massive hole approached the groups. Slightly ducking under the top of the hole it had created, the intruder that had slaughtered numerous Decepticons make itself known to the two groups.

Standing slightly taller then the groups of Cybertronians was a massive dragon-like monstrosity. A long skeletal-like body, long arms and legs with razor sharp claws at the end of each limb, and a long thin tail with a very sharp blade at the end. Attached to its back were two massive electronic wings, both glowing a sickly yellow color. Its head was long and thin, two yellow eyes staring at the Decepticon standing before it. The rest of its body was fairly extensively armored, especially around its glowing torso.

Slowly lumbering out of the massive hole in the wall, the massive metal dragon growled at everyone who was standing in its way. But by doing that, each group noticed particular about the dragon.

The Decepticons noticed that the monster was holding a fairly large container of Dark Energon in one of its claws.

And the Autobots? They noticed that there was something laying in the creature's mouth, a bleeding body to be more precise.

It was Fowler, this thing had Agent Fowler just sitting between the its jaws. A groan from the man relieved that Autobots slightly but didn't help the overall situation. This thing still had the agent (injured no less) in a very dangerous placement. One simple squeeze by the dragon could completely shred the poor man, leading to his extremely painful demise.

The Autobots had to be extremely careful, one wrong move could-

Turning its massive head, the dragon suddenly stared at the group of Autobots and growled something fierce. But it wasn't any of the bots that it was staring at. It was the only human in their group that the monster was glaring it. Slowly opening its jaws, the massive dragon roughly dropped the injured human to the ground. Fowler groaned due to his injuries and the fall, but at least he wasn't between two rows of sharp teeth anymore.

However, the moment the human was released from the creature's jaws did the dragon unleash a massive beam of energy at Karas. Unprepared for such a attack, Karas could do little but raise his arms in defense. The blast slammed into the armored boy with a massive amount of force, causing Karas to go flying back down the opposite end of that hall.

"Jack!" Arcee yelled in concern. Cliffjumper and Bulkhead were concerned as well but they were also preoccupied by the monster in front of them.

Flying through the hall, Karas finally came to a stop when he slammed into a wall. Releasing a small groan, Karas quickly got to his feet and drew his sword. Doing so however, Karas got a good look at his armor and was a bit surprised to see that his arms and chest was a bit scorched. It wasn't anything permanent, but it wasn't a common occurrence to see a Karas' armor being actually damaged.

The dragon continued to just stare daggers at the armored boy. Slightly satisfied that is attack had actually left a mark on the boy's armor, the Dragon roared into the air before making a beeline rush towards Karas.

The Autobots tried to block the monster's path but were just knocked away by the creature's large wings.

With the massive dragon quickly approaching, Karas considered his options. He could fight the monster right here and now but while such a confined space, the battle would be quite difficult. So instead, he went with plan B.

Quickly creating a portal, Karas transformed into his motorcycle form and took off down a nearby hall, the giant dragon following quickly behind.

Back with the Autobot's however, the team were instantly plunged into a fire fight. Soundwave might have taken off once the dragon had ran off, but the squad of Vehicons weren't going anywhere. Cliffjumper instantly blasted a nearby Con and grabbed Fowler. Looking at the man, Cliffjumper was slightly revealed that the man's injuries weren't too bad, nothing life threatening anyway.

With Arcee and Bullkhead wiping out any of the remaining Vehicons, Cliffjumper just sighed and looked off down the hall that Karas had escaped through.

"So much for snatch and grab..."

_With Karas:_

Less then a few minutes of driving and Karas could already say that the Nemesis looked like a maze at the rate he was going. Driving through countless hall after hall was starting to get a little disorienting for the boy...or at least it would have been if it wasn't for the massive dragon chasing him.

_"How are you so fast?! You'll nearly taking up the entire hall with those wings of yours!"_ Karas muttered to himself, turning another corner as he did so.

The dragon was still easily keeping pace with the speeding motorcycle, claws digging into the metal floor as it pulled itself around the turning point in the hall. Even with its massive size, the dragon was surprisingly fast on its feet. It had even come quite close to biting one of Kara's wheels off once or twice and the random energy balls that is shot at him was quite difficult to doge as well.

Still despite that, Karas had been able to lead the monster on one hell of a journey so far...but now what?

In order to fight this thing, Karas had to get to somewhere open, somewhere he could fight without the risk of hitting a wall or something. This thing had the capabilities of lighting up any of these halls with that energy attack, so the halls of the Nemesis was out of the question. So getting out of the massive warship was the right idea...but where and the hell is the nearest exit!?

Rounding another, Karas looked desperately for some kind of exit. He didn't have time to cut his way out of this place and his motorcycle form's weapons weren't powerful enough to blast through the ship's walls, so some kind of window or door was preferable.

While looking for a exit however, Karas did notice something at the end of current hallway. It wasn't a door or a window but instead...it was Soundwave.

The tall Decepticon was just standing there. He wasn't shooting at them, he wasn't commanding troops, and he wasn't running for his life.

Soundwave was just standing there...waiting.

Karas paid the Decepticon no mind and just continued to drive onward. If the Con wasn't going to move then Karas was just going to go around him! It wasn't his fault if the Con got attacked by a giant robotic dragon because he was in the way.

_"Move it or lose it! I'm not stopping!"_

But as the two speeding forces approached Soundwave, the Decepticon was already working on a simple way to get rid of these two intruders.

Just a few feet before Karas was going to pass him, a large portal appeared right in front of the Decepticon. It was around the size of the entire hall and gave Karas little to no chance to respond to it. Due to their current speeds, neither Karas or the Dragon were able to escape before the portal engulfed them.

When all was said and done, Soundwave was the only one left in the entire hallway, no trace of the armored figure or Dragon left at all.

_One mile away, the same altitude as the Nemesis:_

It happened in an instant, one giant flash and suddenly everything was turned upside down.

All Karas could remember happening was driving towards the Decepticon that Cliffjumper had called 'Soundwave' and then...there was a portal. Wait...that was a Ground Bridge! That damn mech had opened a Ground Bridge right in front of him and tricked him into drive right though it!

So now, he was in some completely random location, separated from the Autobots...Oh and they were a few hundred feet in the air. Just great.

_"Oh...I am going to kick that guys ass the next time I see-Agh!"_

Karas didn't have a chance to finish his curse when he felt a massive claw grab him. Slowly twisting his head (or what would be his head in his motorcycle form) as much as he could, Karas noticed that he wasn't the only one who was tricked through that Ground Bridge.

The massive Dragon had seemingly brought here as well...and it was pissed.

Continuously falling through the air, the massive dragon quickly extend both of its wings and took flight, soaring through the air with its unwilling passenger.

Grabbing both ends of the motorcycle, the Dragon started to painfully bend the vehicle in half right down the middle. With the sound of metal bending ringing through his ears, Karas quickly activated his current form's weapons. Hatchets and compartments suddenly opened throughout the motorcycle's frame, small symbols appearing as various missiles were deployed.

Due to the close proximity the two shared, the missiles smacked into the giant dragon's frame without any notice. Dozens of explosions filled the short space between Karas and the dragon, causing one hell of a commotion and got the dragon to momentarily lose grip on its prey.

Now falling through the air like a rock, Karas instantly returned to his human form and looked up at his foe. Readying his sword, Karas was jolted backwards as the dragon descended on him. Claw meet sword as the two engaged each other in mid air. Karas however quickly found that he was easily out matched in this type of battle. All he could do was block and dodge the monster's claws, the dragon's long limbs swiping and clawing at his armor.

The fact that he couldn't use the air to maneuver himself like the monster before him was dangerously limiting what Karas could in this situation. That was made even more obvious when Karas was nearly tossed through the air when the Dragon's tail slashed him across the chest.

_"Damn!"_ Recovering quickly and blocking a swipe to the side of his body, Karas made up his mind that the air wasn't the best place for a fight at the moment.

Quickly kicked off from the monster's arm before its other limb could come around for another swipe. Gaining a bit of distance between the two of them, Karas quickly summoned another portal and dived through it.

Taking a form of a jet this time, Karas blasted off towards the ground.

With his foe following dangerously behind him, Karas started to think of a way to get the massive dragon to come down to his level. Returning to his humanoid form the moment he touched the ground, Karas generated something in one of his hands. Taking the form of a few energy knives, Karas launched the sharp projectiles at the Dragon.

Most of the knives didn't really do much on the outside, just bouncing off the creature's armor. But one or two of the knives evenly cleaved through the Dragon's wings, momentarily screwing up the Dragon's flying capabilities.

The Dragon promptly came crashing down into the ground, its wings flapping wildly in the process. The sudden impact from the collision created a small cloud of dust, causing Karas' view of the monster to become distorted. Slowly standing up from the crater it had created, the massive Dragon quickly did away with the cloud of dirt with a single flap of its wings.

With the cloud out of the way, the two forces stared down at each other. The Dragon's sickly yellow eyes staring into the blue eyes of Karas, neither of them backing off for even a moment.

Stepping forwards slightly, the massive Dragon slowly put the canister it had stolen from the Nemesis aside and out of the way of their battle.

Facing Karas again, the Dragon completely engulfed itself in a large black dome of energy. Looking on in concern, Karas never took his hands off his sword and was fully prepared for whatever the Dragon was doing.

It turns out...the Dragon was just making the battle a bit more even for both sides.

Stepping out of the black dome wasn't a Dragon, but instead it was a much more humanoid figure. Standing just a foot or two above Karas, the figure had taken a appearance much like his own. Covered in thick grey armor, the figure's most notable feature was the massive energy sword/scythe extending out of both arms. With a round dome like head with a transparent skull, the figure took a few test steps towards Karas before taking a fighting stance.

**"Well, may we continue?"** The figure said.

Karas took his own fighting stance, _"Any chance of getting your name before I kill you?"_

The figure shrugged and nodded at the young man's question,**"Very well,"**

Dashing forward, the figure imminently made a attempt to slice Karas' head off. Getting his sword up in time, Karas stared into the figure's skull as their swords sliced into each other.

**"You may call me ****_Ridorī, _I shall be sure to singe it into your skull before I turn it into ashes!"**

**To be continued:**

* * *

**Author Comments:**

-Both of the Mikura's forms are based on **Metroid** Villains:  
The Dragon from is based off of **Meta Ridley** from Metroid Prime while the humanoid form is based off of **Weavel** from Metroid Prime Hunters, although that form is heavily altered. The Mikura's personality will be also somewhat based off Ridley...although unless you have read the short Manga they had for the series, then you may be a bit surprised that Ridley isn't as much of a beast as the games make him out to be.

-**Ridori** is Ridley's Japanese name if I am right, so...yeah. Hes actually named Ridley in that sense.

-Yep, really early example of Soundwave's GB trick. But hey, he was pissed...if you understood that small bit concerning him.

-The knives that Karas used are somewhat based off the energy projectiles that Eko uses in the OVAs, you can see him use something like this in the opening scene in the first OVA (when he is outside his Jet form) and again when he fights in the final battle. But seeing as we never really see these up close, I took some liberties with them.

-No Mikura File this time, as next chapter we will get into how his alternate from fights and a bit more of his Dragon form. Don't worry, it will be in the next chapter if anyone is interested in them.

-There should be only one or two more chapters in the Darkness Rising arc, and then we get to the episodes of the first season.

PM me if you have any questions or suggestions


	7. Chapter 6: Of Blades and Bombs

Speech Legend:

"Human Speech/Cybertronian Speech"

**[Bumblebee Speach] -Beep Translation**

_"Spirits Speech/Communications Line/Karas Talking"_

_'Thoughts'_

**"Inhuman/Non-Cybertronian Creatures/Intense screams or yelling/Introductions"**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Of Blades and Bombs.  
**

_-There isn't a problem in the world that can't be solved by the proper application of explosives._

* * *

_Nevada Desert (Exact Location Unknown):_

At a distance, this desert in the middle of Nevada would appear to be nothing sort of a barren wasteland, no life near it for miles.

But taking a closer look, one could notice that the sandy floor of this bed of land was something much more, a battlefield.

Littering the landscape with their clashes, the two armored warriors were determined to give not even a single inch to the other. Small bursts of sparks randomly appeared throughout the desert, the two swordsman cutting away at each other at a speed that was nearly impossible to see by a normal human. The intensity of this speedy battle eventually slowed down when these two figures locked their blades together in a huge clash, sending shock waves through the sandy environment.

With a brief moment to think, Karas had to admit that this Mikura was...quite different then its cousins (well, besides the humanoid form anyway).

Quickly into this battle, Karas had imminently taken notice of Ridorī's impressive speed which was more then capable of keeping up with his armor's own abnormal reflexes. That and the fact that he still possessed the strength of his dragon form had made this Mikura one hell of a foe.

This stand still did not last that much longer however, as the two figures eventually broke off from each other with Karas swinging high and Ridorī swinging to the side. Both of their swords clashed once more, a torrent of sparks erupting.

_"For a giant metal dragon, you are much more **-Clang!-** nimble with those swords..." _Karas muttered, one of his arms blocking a slice at his ribs. He then took a quick slice at his foe's head, his blade being stopped just centimeters from its target.

Ridorī chuckled, pushing the blade away from his temple, **"Indeed, and you are much of a challenge then I _-Clang!-_** **expected from a child."**

_"Wha?" _Karas was not expecting this Mikura to know that he was...well, a teenager. He didn't have a chance to question him however, as Ridorī pressed onward.

**"Ah Ah, no spoilers!" **Pushing Karas' sword off to the side. The Mikura then extended both of his swords forward and trapped Karas, both of his swords at the boy's neck.

Ducking out of the way of a near decapitation, Karas dove to the Mikura's side and swung his sword at the monster's midsection. Sparks flashed as his blade connected, but Ridorī quickly brought one of his blades down and swatted Karas' weapon away. Kicking the warrior in the stomach, Ridorī quickly returned to his offensive strategy, slicing and dicing away at Karas, attempting to find any open spots on the warrior.

The head **-Clang!-**

His knee **-Clang!-**

His Elbow **-Clang!-**

His torso **-Clang!-**

And even his damn foot! **-Clang!-**

But despite his aggressive advancements, Karas still managed to either block his attacks or just simply roll out of the way. Growing extremely impatient, Ridorī continued to press his attack but in doing so, his attacks became much more sloppy. His rage was overriding his reason. His swings became wild, savage, going wide and growing even more impactful as they slammed into Karas.

Ducking, side stepping, or just parrying, Karas started to notice the sloppy style that his foe was employing. After toughening through a nasty slice to his arms (his armor taking much of the damage), Karas started to feed his foe's annoyance. He did this by simply backpedaling, jumping out of his foe's range and angering him even more. If he made his foe mad enough...the a mistake was inevitable.

**"Ah!"** Ridorī roared, thrusting both of his swords at his enemy's torso in a attempt to gut him like a fish.

But this attack was a too obvious for Karas to ignore. Quickly grabbing the Mikura's arms in mid thrust, Karas restrained his foe's weapons with one arm and reared back his free arm in anticipation. Keeping a strong hold the arms, Karas quickly started to go physical on Ridorī's face. Punching after punch, Karas delivered quite the beating upon the Mikura until he was knocked away by a very explosive kick to his own head.

Staggering back from each others onslaughts, the two armored warriors quickly launched back at each other. They tested each others strength for a brief second before once again engaging in another lightening round of slicing and dicing. Their blades clashed over and over again, the three blades cutting at each other as the attempts at each others lives were intercepted and blocked.

This went on for less then a few seconds but for the two enemies, it seemed like hours. The swords never gave an inch however, the multitudes of impacts not even denting or nicking the sharp pieces of metal.

Ridorī was starting to grow tired of this however. Despite the enjoyment he was getting out of this battle, the Mikura knew that he had a mission to complete. Sparing a split glance (any longer and he would have gotten his head chopped off) at the canister of Dark Energon, the Mikura considered the options of prolonging this fight any longer.

**_"Let me answer that for you my friend,"_** A sudden voice echoed through the Mikura's head. This caused the Mikura to lose focus for a brief second, earning a nasty wound to his shoulder due to it.

**_"I have a old friend of yours positioned nearby, one with more then enough firepower to glass the entire area."_**

Sending a roundhouse kick towards Karas, Ridorī couldn't help but listen to the voice,**_"If__ you don't hurry it up a bit then I won't be held responsible if he gets...impatient."_**

Eyes widening at the implication, Ridori figured that if he wanted to get out alive...he would have to get a little imaginative.

Catching the kick that was thrown towards his head, Karas tried to crack the Mikura's leg in half like a twig. But before he had a chance to do so, something suddenly sprang forward and struck the warrior across the head. Getting tossed backwards by the sudden attack, Karas quickly recovered and prepared for another assault.

However...something was just a _bit _different about his foe now.

His body was basically the same but one of his arms had changed significantly. Now instead of the humanoid arm with a sword attached to the wrist, the Mikura's arm was now huge and had a reptilian feel to it. In fact, it was the same arm he had while in his dragon from.

_'He can transform individual sections of his body?!'_

Ridori chuckled a bit, playfully swinging his over sized arm,** "It took me some time to learn how to do this, but I must say...its proven quite useful."**

_"Really?"_ Karas sneered,_ "With what? Being finally able to reach that one itchy place on your back you normally can't reach?"  
_

Inwardly grinning as the Mikura sneered at his joke, Karas quickly shot off like a bullet and closed the distance between himself and the Mikura in a instant. But as he got in spitting distance of the Mikura, Ridori's arm suddenly returned to its previous form, the blade on his arm clashing with Karas once again. With one arm free however, Ridori quickly aimed his blade and brought it down towards the warrior's neck. But before the blade even nicked his armor, Karas used one of his own arms to quickly restrained the Mikura's limb.

It was a stalemate, both foes with their arms and swords locked away, neither able to attack. Staring into the eyes of the other, the two did the only thing they could do.

_**Bam!**_

They started to headbutt each other, hoping each blow could cause the other to weaken enough to be overpowered.

**_Bam!_**

It didn't seem to be working.

_**Bam!**_

But on the third collision Ridori started to chuckle, a grin on his boney transparent head. Karas raised a nonexistent eyebrow but noticed something slithering and shifting behind his foe. It took a second but Karas suddenly spotted something long and metallic rising above the Mikura's back. It was almost like a-

_'Tail!'_

Quickly bring a leg up, Karas kicked off the Mikura away and rolled backwards before a sharp blade stabbed into the ground. flipping onto his feet, Karas spotted a long tail attached to the Mikura's back. It seemed like the Mikura wasn't just limited to his present limbs.

Like a scorpion, Ridori hunched over and gleefully launched his tail at Karas. Hopping out of the way, Karas was forced to go defensive as his foe retracted his new limb and launched at him over and over again. Karas tried to block or deflect the tail's blade but the flexibility of the appendage made it difficult for him to get his sword to connect.

Thinking quickly, Karas waited for his foe to launch his tail at him again before putting his idea into action. Tossing his sword into the air, Karas ducked as the tails swiped at him and grabbed it with both arms. Digging his feet into the ground, Karas struggled for a moment so he wouldn't get tossed around like a rag doll. But the moment he solidified his footing, Karas started to heave and pull the Mikura's tail like a ball on a chain.

Perhaps playing enough Super Mario 64 was about to pay off-

_'Poof'_

That train of thought vanished unfortunately when Karas suddenly found a certain tail vanishing from his grip. Looking at his foe, Karas cursed as he saw Ridori rushing at him, his swords aimed high. Looking up to the sky, Karas quickly retrieved his sword and slashed sideways, his sword clashing with Ridori's once more.

_Meanwhile..._

While the chaotic struggle between these two continued on, a lone figure watched from a impressive distance.

It was a large imposing creature, a culmination of a what looked like a tank and a massive crab. It was huge, nearly as large as a military tank with its treads buried into the barren landscape. With three sickly green eyes staring at the two clashing warriors, an familiar voice rang through its ears like the Mikura before it.

**_"Enough of this, Ridori is taking too long."_** The voice stated, its voice clearly annoyed.

**_"Raise the landscape Rampage, render it to glass."_**

The tank-like creature chuckled, releasing a dose of psychotic laughter. Positioning itself in the direction two warriors, a tri-barreled cannon on the monster's torso slowly shifted and revealed itself. Twirling and taking aim, three distinct missiles were locked into place and were aimed for deployment. Three thunderous cracks filled the landscape as the missiles fired, more psychotic laughter echoing as well.

_Back in the Battle:_

The battle continued on, neither side gaining an advantage on the other.

Ridori continued to use his transformations to slide the battle in his favor but none of his attempts worked out the way he wanted them to. He summoned his wings at one point to block more of Kara's energy knives, he transformed one of his legs to enhance his kick but Karas just powered through it, and he even transformed his head back into his dragon form so he could blast the warrior with a bout of fire.

But even that didn't work out as Karas sliced the stream of fire in half, his sword glowing red from the intense heat.

Ridori growled in annoyance as he shifted his head back into his humanoid form. He was getting nowhere in this fight. Grinding his swords together, the Mikura was about to rush into the battle once more until a series of thunderous claps caught him off guard.

Looking up into the air, Ridori spotted three incoming beacons of light falling right towards him and Karas. The sudden appearance of these lights confused the Mikura for a moment, why did they seem so familiar? A scratching feeling poked the Mikura in the back of his head for a few moments until a recent memory made him realize was exactly these lights were.

"..."

* * *

_"If__ you don't hurry it up a bit then I won't be held responsible if he gets...**impatient**."_

* * *

"..."

**"Son of a Bitch!" **Ridori screamed, the three beacons of light inching ever closer. Twisting his head back towards Karas, the Mikura shouted at the boy and took off in a dead sprint.

**"I'll deal with you later!" **With that said, the Mikura quickly approached where he had set down the canister of Dark Energon. Grabbing the large canister with one hand, the Mikura engulfed himself in another dome of energy and returned to his dragon form. Roaring at the incoming missiles, the massive dragon lifted off in a sudden jump, taking flight with his massive wings.

Karas looked on in confusion. Why after this long battle did his foe suddenly turn tail and run? And he sounded more then a bit concerned...but from what?

Looking in the same direction that his foe had, Karas spotted the same three beacons as before, their distance from the ground growing even smaller. Taking a closer look at the sources of light, Karas groaned as he realized what they actually are.

_"So thats why he ran..."_

_Team Prime's base:_

Optimus was...not in a good mood when he returned to base.

After a terrifying encounter with Megatron and his undead horde of Dark Energon infused Cybertronians, Optimus and Ratchet had returned to a fairly deserted base. The only ones there at the time was Bumblebee and three of the children (Yurine included), with Arcee, Cliffjumper, Bulkhead, and Jack missing...sort of. Jack was there alright...but only in the physical sense.

Meaning that Karas was somewhere else.

Confronting the scout on the subject, Optimus was imminently brought up to speed on the Fowler situation. Hearing about this, Optimus quickly ordered Bumblebee to occupancy him and provide back up while Ratchet stayed behind with the children...

That was the plan...until a space bridge opened up in the middle of the command center, depositing three Autobots and one injured human before it closed.

Optimus breathed a sigh of a relief for a second, the sight of his team and Fowler being alright was a sight for sore optics after the day he had been having...or at least it was until he noticed that one person was still missing.

"Arcee, where is Jackson?"

This sudden question, made Arcee stop in tracks. Looking to her teammates for some help (the same teammates who were bust with messing around with Miko at this very moment), Arcee had the displeasure of explaining to Optimus why Jack wasn't all there right now.

This was around the time where Optimus was told about the un-welcomed third party that had been discovered aboard the Nemesis. Getting a quickly run down on how it had been the Mikura that had taken Fowler and slaughtered a good number of Cons in the process, Optimus was greatly displeased to learn that none of the bots had seen Karas since he had run off with giant Dragon close on his tail.

Upset over this, Optimus quickly turned his gaze on Bulkhead, who had allowed Jack to come with them on this mission in the first place.

Seeing the Prime dig into the Wrecker, Arcee couldn't help but sympathize with the Prime. Having an innocent in all of this out somewhere with a giant monster trying to kill him? Yeah, that was a bit worrying. Still...when the kid involved was the same one that had previously killed a giant mechanical monster...then it was a bit hard to actually worry about the boy's condition.

Luckily for the Wrecker, Cliffjumper quickly jumped in to play referee between the Prime and Wrecker.

"Hey, its not like we could follow him! The kid can fly after all. And besides, you've seen what the kid can do." Cliffjumper tried to reason with the Prime(It was his big mouth that had gotten Bulk to let the kid come along in the first place) and pulled out a small data disk, "I'm sure hes fine. Besides, you won't believe what I found while-"

**_-KABOOM!-_**

The base shook from the massive explosion, shock-wave rumbling and quaking through the base itself. The Autobots quickly grabbed something to stabilize themselves while the humans did the same. They even had to watch the ceiling as bits of the rocky structure was shaken loose by the thunderous shock-wave. With Bulkhead and Cliffjumper blocking any falling debris from hitting their human allies, the base's occupants could do nothing but wait for the rumbling to subside.

A few minutes passed before that happened however and by the time it had happened, only one thing could be asked.

"What the slag was that!?" Cliffjumper shouted, the shock-wave having cut him off earlier.

Ignoring Cliffjumper for a brief moment, Ratchet quickly went to work with his console. Dusting off the few bits of debris that had fell onto his keyboard, Ratchet was able to quickly pull up what exactly had happened to cause such a shock-wave.

It...didn't look too good.

_Explosion location:_

_"Ugh..."_

Everything felt...numb. That was the best word Karas could describe himself at the moment. Numb. Nothing hurt too much really, he was sore alright but other then that it wasn't too bad really. Just numb.

Slowly pushing himself off the ground, Karas could feel a good amount of dirt and dusk just slide off him. Brushing any left over dirt off his head and out of his eyes, the armored warrior carefully got to his feet. The numbness he felt didn't help but in a few seconds Karas managed to get back on his feet. He wasn't that stable and any fighting wasn't the best idea at the moment but Karas was back on his feet.

And what did he see the moment he got back on his feet?

_"Wow...that is one hell of a big hole."_

Well, of course the first thing Karas saw was what had knocked him on his ass in the first place.

Just about a football field's length in front of Karas was three massive craters, three giant holes in the ground. They were completely charred, fires still burning inside them as giant clouds of smoke filled the air. Bits of debris and burned pieces of rock was scattered around the entire area around the craters, basically making it impossible to walk around the massive holes in the ground.

These were the impact sights of where those missiles had landed, where they exploded.

Taking a moment to consider what happened, Karas couldn't help but laugh at his good fortune. Not even his armor could stand against such a explosive force directly. The only reason he was alive right now was because he had seen the Dragon Mikura run away with his tail tucked between his legs and used his limited time altering capabilities to escape the explosion...mostly.

Speaking of which...who had launched those in the first place?

Scanning the landscape for a moment, Karas sighed when he couldn't spy a single thing out of the ordinary. Like Ridori, whoever had attacked the two of them was long gone as well. Apparently they weren't willing to risk the off-chance of Karas surviving the explosion and coming after them.

Still, it wasn't like he could do anything about it now. After rummaging around the debris for a moment or two (for everyone else at least, for Karas it was more like fifteen minutes or two), Karas found and re-sheathed his sword before he transformed back into his jet form.

_'Now...what direction is the Bot's base?'_

_..._

_'Ah crap.'_

_Team Prime's Base, sometime later:  
_

The sound of the elevator descending made all the bots fall into a fighting stance. Since Agent Fowler was already there with the bots, the team had no idea who could be inside the elevator. Unwilling to take a chance after the recent events, the Autobots quickly positioned the humans behind themselves and readied their weapons for anything.

But once the elevator came to a stop, the bots were confused when the doors opened and nothing was inside. Some of the Autobots sworn that they had seen something but the sight of a empty elevator told them otherwise.

That was until a sudden voice called out to the group, _"I swear, if one of you shoot me...I won't be held responsible for what I do to you!"_

Recognizing the voice, the bots slowly lowered their blasters. With the threat of being blown to kingdom come out of the way, the elevator's occupant slowly exited the metal box and revealed Karas, in all of his armored glory.

_"Thank you."_ Karas nodded to the group,_ "It took me nearly a hour to find my way back here, I'd rather not get shot in the face after all of that."_

"An hour? With your speed what took so long?" Bulkhead asked.

Karas looked away, a bit embarrassed_, "Well, you base is hidden and I don't know my way around this place...so I got a bit lost okay?"_

With the tension slowly fading away, Optimus went ahead and asked Jack what had happened to him on the Nemesis. After being given a minute to return to his body, Jack started to relay the entire experience to the group.

Jack described how he and the Mikura ran a few laps around the ship, how a certain annoyed Decepticon had bridged them to another location, and finally how the battle between the two went on until a sudden explosion interrupted them. It was all surprising for the group, especially due to the fact that the giant explosion that rocked the base was actually directed at Karas.

Still, there was one detail that the Mikura had escaped with a large container of Dark Energon. After fighting a horde of undead that were fueled by the stuff, the idea that a unknown threat now had Dark Energon in their procession was worrying.

Seeing how concerned the local Prime was with the recent turn of events, Cliffjumper thought that now was a good opportunity to tell their leader of what he and the others had found on the Nemesis. He tried to tell him before but...something had interrupted him, so hopefully nothing distract him this time.

"Seeing how the Cons were a bit occupied with their...guest, I found something quite interesting on one of their consoles." Lifting up the same data-disk as before, Cliffjumper tried to show Optimus it but was thwarted when the team's medic swiped it from his grasp.

_'Oh come on!'_

Ignoring the annoyed expression on Cliffjumper's face, Ratchet walked over to his console and inserted the disk. With a few clicks on his keyboard, the medic soon processed the data that Cliffjumper had discovered and displayed the results on the console's monitor for everyone to see. The humans among them had no idea what the plans could be for but the Cybertronians had a much better idea.

"...is that blueprints for a Space Bridge?" Arcee reluctantly asked.

Ratchet nodded, "Indeed. It seems we've discovered the means that Megatron used to travel here..."

"...and how he means to bring an army of Undead Cybertrionians here as well."

The team instantly looked at the Prime, their faces expressing the horror that the very idea brought to their minds. Optimus quickly went down what had exactly happened to him and Ratchet not so long ago, revealing the hordes of undead that they had to fight off before they could return. It made a few of them nearly gag.

And they were hoping that the zombie-con they had seen back in the mine was just a stupid experiment or something...

Still, there was one good thing about all of this. Ratchet quickly pointed out that without a massive navigation dish, the Cons would be unable to lock onto their planet's coordinates due to the massive distance between there and Earth. Even if the Cons wanted to steal something on Earth, there shouldn't a telescopic disk available to them that could be powerful enough to achieve their goals. Or at least there was some relief until Raf brought up a interesting point about Earth's own resources.

"What about a whole bunch of _linked_ radio telescope dishes? Like the giant size array in Texas!" Raf suggested.

Now that was interesting, if there was a single dish they could use...then why not combine some weaker dishes that could produce a single that would be equal to what they needed? Still, this just made the situation even worse. Now that the bots knew that the Cons could connect to Cybertron, that just made it even more important to deal with their Space Bridge sooner rather then later.

"Ratchet, while there are inherit dangers in what I am about to ask, we need to use the ground bridge to get to Megatron's space bridge." Optimus asked the medic, who merely looked at the Prime like he was crazy or something.

"Optimus...do you have any idea of the implications that you are suggesting?"

Jack didn't like the sound of that, "Implications? What...implications?"

Ratchet sighed before explaining the dangers of bridging to someplace at a extreme distance, "If a ground bridge is stretched far beyond its physical limits, it could snap and scatter everyone inside it among the stars."

Optimus nodded at the implication but didn't back down, "It is a unfortunate risk but one we must take Ratchet," The Prime then turned the rest of his team, "the Autobots and I must take care of Megatron's Space Bridge while Jackson and the others make sure the Decepticons do not gain access to the Dishes in Texas."

"Excuse me?" Jack asked the tall Prime after hearing his name being called among Optimus' plan.

Optimus settled his optics on the young boy and the other non-cybertronians, "With Agent Fowler out of commission due to his injuries, I need you and the others to make sure that the Decepticons do take control of the dishes until the Space Bridge has been dealt with."

Jack really wanted to face-palm at that moment. He just got done with fighting a Mikura and surviving a massive explosion...and now they wanted him to go with Miko and Raf to protect some giant dishes? Seriously? Sure, it made sense...but really?

Looking over at Yurine, Jack wondered if she would even agree to this? This was a bit out of their jurisdiction. Oh sure, so was the mine situation but that at least had a Mikura involved in it...this time however? Not so much.

But after one look from Yurine made Jack sigh. Things were never that simple right?

_Giant Dish-Array, Texas:  
_

Stepping out of the ground bridge, Miko, Raf and_ Karas_ slowly made their way towards the array's entrance.

Turns out that Yurine was less concerned with their jurisdiction when it involved the threat of a giant army of undead robots coming to earth and killing everything. They had enough to deal with at the moment when it came to the Mikura, so dealing with the undead was something that both her and Jasper wanted to avoid. And just be careful, Yurine sent Jack in as Karas, you never know when something could go horribly wrong.

Tugging on the door, Miko groaned, "Its locked."

_"One second."_

Walking up to the front door of the complex, Karas drew his sword and sliced at the door right down the middle. At first it appeared as if nothing happened, but with a slight push the two doors slowly swung open with a creek. Miko just starred at the doors for a moment before slowly glancing at Kara's sword, which was still in Kara's hand.

_"Don't even think about it."_ Karas didn't even look at her when he said this but it was just a feeling she had.

Miko stuck her tongue at the armored figure before following behind him and Raf. As the three walked through the military complex, they were surprised to see how little security it had. Sure, Karas could deal with anything that came up (nonlethal of course) but it was still strange to see barely anyone in a complex such as this.

The tiro ignored that oddity for the moment and processed to the computer room. Quickly finding a nearby terminal, Raf got to work as quickly as he can. There were a few firewalls and protection programs, but they all proved ineffective as Raf plowed right through them.

"I'm in," the boy told his companions, "but so are the Decepticons."

Karas and Miko were stuck by this information as they were hopping that they were ahead of the Cons at the moment, "Already? How can you tell?" Miko asked.

Raf zoomed in a few bits of data that were running across the monitor, making the other focus on the speeding data.

"Its the same language that was on the blueprints that Ratchet showed us," Raf pointed to the Cybertonian language, "But this time there is one major difference."

_"Whats that?"_

"This time, I can interact with it." And with that said, Raf quickly got to work. Unlike the still pictures that Ratchet had shown the group back at the base, with the Cons inside the network this time Raf could interact and sync up with their processors. Over a few seconds of keyboard crunching, Raf was already messing with the Decepticon's attempts to link up with the dish array.

Still, it wasn't the perfect method as the Cons continued to attempt a break it into the system despite Raf's best efforts. It was like a endless tug of war, one that would continue until one side gave up or was defeated. Too bad for the Cons, Raf wasn't anywhere near giving up yet.

So perhaps some...alternative methods were necessary at this point?

_**-Crash!-**_

Apparently so.

It had only taken a moment, but Karas had to think fast when a giant metal tentacle burst through the room's ceiling and made a beeline towards Miko and Raf.

_"Behind you!" _Karas called out, grabbing the others before the tentacle crushed the computer Raf had been working on. Rolling out of the way, the trio gazed at the strange appendage, Karas preparing his stance for another interception just in case.

Turns out that it was a good idea, as the tentacle did in fact try to strike the children yet again. Karas denied such a attempt however, as he quickly cut down the metallic appendage as it flew at them. As his blade reduced the tentacle to nothing but a stub, the limb quickly retreated back through the hole it had used to attack them in the first place.

Karas waited for a moment or two but when nothing happened he turned to Raf and Miko,_ "Raf, continue your work. I'll deal with this."_

Raf quickly nodded and turned back to the computer while Miko ran to the nearby wall. Quickly grabbing something, the teenager returned to Raf's side with a fire axe in hand. Giving Karas a nod as well, the armored individual vanished it a burst of speed and took off after the source of the limb that had attacked them. Coming to a stop outside the dish array, Karas found himself face to face with a familiar looking individual.

Standing in front of him was the same Decepticon that he had seen on the Nemesis. It was tall, thin, and had a very ominous feel being generated from it. But none of that mattered to Karas because he noticed something much more important (in his mind anyway).

This was the same Con that had sent him flying through a ground bridge while a giant flying Dragon was trying to kill him!

_"You!_" Karas pointed his sword at Soundwave, _"You're the same Con that transported me to the middle of nowhere...while more then a hundred feet in the air!" _

Soundwave didn't even acknowledge the boy's words and instead looked towards the base's computer console. He had a mission to complete for Lord Megatron, but this creature would prove to be quite the obstacle. So, alternative measures were needed to occupy this threat until the mission was completed.

Luckily, Soundwave brought one hell of a distraction with him for just such a occasion.

Turning back to Karas, a few clicks were heard before something was deployed from the Decepticon's chest. It looked like a strange back contraption, somewhat similar to Laserbeak's casual form. But unlike the likes of Laserbeak, this Deployer was much more bulky and had a black finish to it. As it flipped through the air however, it quickly transformed into a more manageable figure then its compact form had been.

Landing in front of Karas was a large robotic looking jaguar, one that was about twice the size of what a actual jaguar should be. It was covered in plates of armor, had very sharp claws and a spiked tail, and it even had two large guns attached to its back!

Staring at Karas with its two red optics, the metallic cat's ears went flat as it barred its teeth at its prey.

**"Ravage...Kill."**

* * *

_**-Next time:** _

_Karas comes face to face in battle with one of the Decepticon's most loyal and dangerous soldiers. Soundwave and one of his many deployers, Ravage fight head to head against the guardian of Jasper, but what will happen to the Autobots in the meanwhile? And the Mikura? What of them and their plans with the Dark Energon they had taken from the Decepticon warship?_

* * *

**Notes:**

-Ravage is somewhat based on his Revenge of The Fallen incarnation, although he looks far closer to a cat in this one and his combat abilities are far more advanced. I did away with that giant single eye of his though, his head looks far more like a actual jaguar then...whatever they were going for in the movie.

-Expect more of Soundwave's pets to show up later on. Ravage and Laserbeak (who will return later on) are simply the first of the Deployer that will make their presence known.

-Ridorī will also make more appearances after this. I would like to continue on with the tradition that Ridley has in the Metroid series as a recurring foe for the main character. Although with his fate in the potential concept of his death? We shall see if that follows Ridley's tradition as well.

* * *

**Mikura Archive:**

* * *

**(Chapters 5/6)**

**Ridorī**  
_- A massive dragon-like Mikura, this is a Mikura with both a form of massive destruction and intense strategy. With a alternate form that can match speed and power to that of a Karas, this massive dragon has a intelligence that most Mikura appears to lack...but follows the orders of something else entirely._

**Physical Characteristics:  
**_- A Large metallic bipedal Dragon covered in thick armor despite his thin appearance._  
_- His head is long and streamlined, processing many sharp teeth with a techno-organic tongue._  
_- Long energy based wings, can regenerate if damaged._  
_- A long armor plated tail with a sharp-spear tip._  
_- Its most important valuable spot is in its chest. There is its core, which is protected at all times with a series of armor plates._  
**Alternate form:**  
_- A humanoid body, covered in a grey armor with a domed helmet on his head._  
_- Possesses three bladed weapons, one of each wrist and a third in the shape of a sword attached on his back._  
_- The head is actually a glowing skull, one of the few remains of his previous form prior to becoming a Mikura._

**Threat Level: 3.5  
**_- Armor plating makes damaging it in its dragon form hard, and its alternate form is quite durable as well._  
_- The dragon form can fire plasma from his mouth along with other projectiles such as fire, ice, and other elements._  
_- In the humanoid form, he has extraordinary skill with his bladed weapons and agility matches such skill.  
- Flying Speed with his wings are able to match the speed of Karas' aerial form.  
- Has the ability to shift individual parts of his body while in the humanoid form, transforming them into the dragon variation._

* * *

Please Message me or ask in a review if you have any questions:_  
_

Next chapter is the last of the Darkness Rising arc and then we will move onto the Season 1 episodes!

**RXR!**


End file.
